DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0260
RAPHAEL
I mean however not the book, but the spirit. For if thou hast not the Spirit of
Grace, even though thou didst carry with thee the whole volume, it would profit
thee nothing.” (Predica II, 208-210.)
By the wish of Julius II or with his consent, Raphael had himself set the
preacher of repentance, whose aim was again receiving recognition in its creative,
inspiring purity, among the saints and teachers of the Church in the Disputa.
Savonarola’s trial was thereby revised urbi et orbi, but his spirit revealed itself as an
undying force in the life of the soul of this generation, as guide in their conversion
and self-communion, when he set true culture in opposition to the mechanical
and vainglorious wisdom of the schools. With Savonarola’s teaching Raphael
remained familiar from his days in Florence on. It was precisely in 1514 that
Fra Bartolommeo’s visit may have revived anew, for the first time, their common
recollections of those hours of spiritual interchange of ideas. The preacher of
penitence had become the man of destiny not only in the life of the Frate; he had
long had an influence on Raphael, as on all natures with any depth of character,
strengthening their creative power by the self-communion he demanded.
In a similar frame of mind the artist was able to assimilate the teachings of
NICHOLAS OF CUSA also; he had become acquainted with them from the
Florentine Academy gathered round Pico della Mirandola; perhaps when he
was at Urbino he had already felt the influence of this far-reaching spirit. The
ideas of this teacher of half a century earlier had just been diffused with new vitality
in Rome through appearing in print, from 1514 on. The last wish of this world-
embracing thinker seems symbolic: he desired with his bones to rest before the
shrine of St Peter’s Chains in the church of his cardinalate, San Pietro in Vincoli;
his heart was to find a place where he was born, at Cues on the Moselle. Thus his
words reached all responsive souls on both sides the Alps, North and South, and
through the most receptive of all, the artists, they could not fail to have the
strongest influence on the multitude of the devout.
“Except by seeking it with the most intense yearning we do not walk on the
right path to attain wisdom.” “ . . . those proud, presumptuous men, wise in
their own conceit, acquainted only with their own understanding, regarding
themselves in their proud exaltation as equal with the highest—they are all in
error. They have barred for themselves the path to wisdom, because they hold
nothing to be true but what they have measured with their own understanding.
Their vanity is their ruin; they have embraced the Tree of Knowledge, but the
Tree of Life they have not attained. But those who have learned that man can
obtain wisdom and the everlasting spiritual life only through the gift of Grace,
these all are blessed—so great is the goodness of God that He hears all who call
upon His name.”1
It was this “holy, fruit-bearing, indispensable wisdom, this precious stone,”
that Contarini “brought out after the Church had long kept it half forgotten”,
1 From De docta ignorantia.
242
I mean however not the book, but the spirit. For if thou hast not the Spirit of
Grace, even though thou didst carry with thee the whole volume, it would profit
thee nothing.” (Predica II, 208-210.)
By the wish of Julius II or with his consent, Raphael had himself set the
preacher of repentance, whose aim was again receiving recognition in its creative,
inspiring purity, among the saints and teachers of the Church in the Disputa.
Savonarola’s trial was thereby revised urbi et orbi, but his spirit revealed itself as an
undying force in the life of the soul of this generation, as guide in their conversion
and self-communion, when he set true culture in opposition to the mechanical
and vainglorious wisdom of the schools. With Savonarola’s teaching Raphael
remained familiar from his days in Florence on. It was precisely in 1514 that
Fra Bartolommeo’s visit may have revived anew, for the first time, their common
recollections of those hours of spiritual interchange of ideas. The preacher of
penitence had become the man of destiny not only in the life of the Frate; he had
long had an influence on Raphael, as on all natures with any depth of character,
strengthening their creative power by the self-communion he demanded.
In a similar frame of mind the artist was able to assimilate the teachings of
NICHOLAS OF CUSA also; he had become acquainted with them from the
Florentine Academy gathered round Pico della Mirandola; perhaps when he
was at Urbino he had already felt the influence of this far-reaching spirit. The
ideas of this teacher of half a century earlier had just been diffused with new vitality
in Rome through appearing in print, from 1514 on. The last wish of this world-
embracing thinker seems symbolic: he desired with his bones to rest before the
shrine of St Peter’s Chains in the church of his cardinalate, San Pietro in Vincoli;
his heart was to find a place where he was born, at Cues on the Moselle. Thus his
words reached all responsive souls on both sides the Alps, North and South, and
through the most receptive of all, the artists, they could not fail to have the
strongest influence on the multitude of the devout.
“Except by seeking it with the most intense yearning we do not walk on the
right path to attain wisdom.” “ . . . those proud, presumptuous men, wise in
their own conceit, acquainted only with their own understanding, regarding
themselves in their proud exaltation as equal with the highest—they are all in
error. They have barred for themselves the path to wisdom, because they hold
nothing to be true but what they have measured with their own understanding.
Their vanity is their ruin; they have embraced the Tree of Knowledge, but the
Tree of Life they have not attained. But those who have learned that man can
obtain wisdom and the everlasting spiritual life only through the gift of Grace,
these all are blessed—so great is the goodness of God that He hears all who call
upon His name.”1
It was this “holy, fruit-bearing, indispensable wisdom, this precious stone,”
that Contarini “brought out after the Church had long kept it half forgotten”,
1 From De docta ignorantia.
242