DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0316
RAPHAEL
as scenery and of antiquarian attractiveness, in which stood fragments of Anti-
quity scattered amongst grottoes and arbours, little groves and vistas; their
best adornment was the spirit which the master of the house was able to conjure
up in them because he was conscious of the genius loci. SADOLET had his
villa on the Quirinal; he thought of it with homesickness in his banishment.
ANGELO COLOCCI, in the same official circle in the Vatican with Raphael,
Secretary of the Correspondence, had his “hortulus” beside Sant’ Andrea delle
Fratte, near the Palazzo del Bufalo, by the arches of the Aqua Vergine; among
creeper-clad fragments of architecture and statues was couched a sleeping
nymph, above the outflow of the spring, hallowed of old—its genius:
“Hie genii locus est, genii una cura voluptas;
Aut genii vivas legibus, aut abeas.”
“This is the place of the genius, whose only care
Is pleasure; live by its laws, or else go hence.”
Such were the lines placed below by the Papal Secretary, Abbreviator, Pro-
curator and Notary of the Camera. In contrast with many of his contempor-
aries, his genius seems to have abandoned him; he provided Erasmus with an
object of biting invectives, and also JAN GORITZ, the prelate of Luxemburg,
from 1512 onwards Papal Protonotary, who was perhaps his competitor in
conviviality. His garden by the Forum of Trajan, at the foot of the Capitol,
seemed to attract the most select minds, as did the master of the house him-
self. “Father of all delights”, “a man pure in heart”, Erasmus calls him—
“Corycius senex” was his name among his Roman friends, after the pattern of
dignified cheerfulness in Vergil’s Georgies (IV, 127). “What good use you have
made of your more than limited means; you have thereby won for yourself
the best of names and everlasting remembrance.” Thus a friend writes to him,
the poet BLOSIO PALLADIO, when he sets up a literary monument to him.
It is the preface to a remarkable anthology of the most outstanding Roman poets
and men of letters who were guests of the Luxemburger. The occasion seems suffi-
ciently worthy of remark: “Paucissimis divitiis”—out of the very limited means
of his Vatican office Goritz understood how to play the Maecenas in a noteworthy
manner. A kind of chapel was erected by him in Sant’ Agostino; at the third
pillar he erected an altar—the much admired group of St Anne with the Virgin
and Child by Andrea Sansovino stood there; above, Raphael painted the Pro-
phet Isaiah as most passionate witness for the birth of the Messiah. The inner
connection between the group of two mothers and the foreteller of the Divine
Child is to-day destroyed by the removal of the sculpture into a side-chapel.
The festival at the consecration of this altar speaks for the value of its dedication
to the donor and his circle of friends. On the day of his patroness St Anne
298
as scenery and of antiquarian attractiveness, in which stood fragments of Anti-
quity scattered amongst grottoes and arbours, little groves and vistas; their
best adornment was the spirit which the master of the house was able to conjure
up in them because he was conscious of the genius loci. SADOLET had his
villa on the Quirinal; he thought of it with homesickness in his banishment.
ANGELO COLOCCI, in the same official circle in the Vatican with Raphael,
Secretary of the Correspondence, had his “hortulus” beside Sant’ Andrea delle
Fratte, near the Palazzo del Bufalo, by the arches of the Aqua Vergine; among
creeper-clad fragments of architecture and statues was couched a sleeping
nymph, above the outflow of the spring, hallowed of old—its genius:
“Hie genii locus est, genii una cura voluptas;
Aut genii vivas legibus, aut abeas.”
“This is the place of the genius, whose only care
Is pleasure; live by its laws, or else go hence.”
Such were the lines placed below by the Papal Secretary, Abbreviator, Pro-
curator and Notary of the Camera. In contrast with many of his contempor-
aries, his genius seems to have abandoned him; he provided Erasmus with an
object of biting invectives, and also JAN GORITZ, the prelate of Luxemburg,
from 1512 onwards Papal Protonotary, who was perhaps his competitor in
conviviality. His garden by the Forum of Trajan, at the foot of the Capitol,
seemed to attract the most select minds, as did the master of the house him-
self. “Father of all delights”, “a man pure in heart”, Erasmus calls him—
“Corycius senex” was his name among his Roman friends, after the pattern of
dignified cheerfulness in Vergil’s Georgies (IV, 127). “What good use you have
made of your more than limited means; you have thereby won for yourself
the best of names and everlasting remembrance.” Thus a friend writes to him,
the poet BLOSIO PALLADIO, when he sets up a literary monument to him.
It is the preface to a remarkable anthology of the most outstanding Roman poets
and men of letters who were guests of the Luxemburger. The occasion seems suffi-
ciently worthy of remark: “Paucissimis divitiis”—out of the very limited means
of his Vatican office Goritz understood how to play the Maecenas in a noteworthy
manner. A kind of chapel was erected by him in Sant’ Agostino; at the third
pillar he erected an altar—the much admired group of St Anne with the Virgin
and Child by Andrea Sansovino stood there; above, Raphael painted the Pro-
phet Isaiah as most passionate witness for the birth of the Messiah. The inner
connection between the group of two mothers and the foreteller of the Divine
Child is to-day destroyed by the removal of the sculpture into a side-chapel.
The festival at the consecration of this altar speaks for the value of its dedication
to the donor and his circle of friends. On the day of his patroness St Anne
298