DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0320
RAPHAEL
to the Sibyls between Raphael and Chigi’s cashier, who refused to pay more
than 500 guilders; the artist proposed as arbitrator Michael Angelo, who is sup-
posed to have valued the head of a single Sibyl at 100 guilders. On his return
from a journey Agostino heard of this, and “although Raphael makes no demand,
because he was in no way inferior to him in delicacy of feeling”, he assigned
him 100 guilders for every head in the picture and impressed upon his cashier
that he must “be nice to him, so that he may be content with this payment; for
if he insisted on the draperies of his figures being paid for, it would be the ruin
of us”. The other story—of the Fornarina who was to chain the painter to his
work by being kept a prisoner in the Villa, seems to have been invented to apply
rather to intercourse with strangers than with a friend. The great calculator
seems this time to have calculated wrongly; the pictures are the work of pupils!
The perpetual goings and comings of artists certainly had also a stimulating
effect on Raphael. As a master of building PERUZZI remained on intimate
terms with him for his own architectural activities also; SEBASTIANO DEL
PIOMBO communicated to him some notion of an art that was poles apart
from him, and perhaps of music also—it was really for the sake of his lute-
playing that Chigi had brought Sebastiano with him from Venice. They
lived, as it seems, side by side in a kind of reciprocity, especially as portrait-
painters, until in the senseless competition for Narbonne the rivalry between
Raphael and Michael Angelo was involved; they became opponents at least,
if not enemies. All this has been handed down to us is carping criticisms of the
Venetian in the letters to Michael Angelo and Raphael’s proud words: “If
Sebastiano allows himself to be helped by Michael Angelo, my victory will be
all the greater.”
The scene of the peaceful activity of all these artists in the “viridarium” or
“suburbanum” of Chigi, the Vigna outside the Porta Settimaniana in the
Trastevere—later famous under the name of the “Farnesina”—was described
by the poet BLOSIO PALLADIO before it was quite finished. We may safely
assume that he understood what he was talking about; his own villa, up the
hill behind St Peter’s, was famous through the setting here provided for himself
and his guests by the intelligence of this witty and cultivated man. “Blosii
villula ter quaterque felix”—Ariosto longs for his daily intercourse with him
and with Bembo, Sadolet and Giovio, and is thinking of him when he praises an
unpretentious and tranquil way of living (Satira V). “Blosius meus Palladius
Romanae urbis delitiae”, the humanist writes of him. The “ornament of Rome”
had in its garden a fountain with marble benches and laurel hedges behind;
there was a path leading uphill through a fragrant grove to the place where
Blosio entertained his friends at table; beside a spring with water from Tibur a
miniature temple surrounded by lemon-trees with a little fountain served as
sideboard, and pillars “in the manner of a theatre” carried a pergola of vines
affording shade. The dwelling with its wealth of art was reached through a
302
to the Sibyls between Raphael and Chigi’s cashier, who refused to pay more
than 500 guilders; the artist proposed as arbitrator Michael Angelo, who is sup-
posed to have valued the head of a single Sibyl at 100 guilders. On his return
from a journey Agostino heard of this, and “although Raphael makes no demand,
because he was in no way inferior to him in delicacy of feeling”, he assigned
him 100 guilders for every head in the picture and impressed upon his cashier
that he must “be nice to him, so that he may be content with this payment; for
if he insisted on the draperies of his figures being paid for, it would be the ruin
of us”. The other story—of the Fornarina who was to chain the painter to his
work by being kept a prisoner in the Villa, seems to have been invented to apply
rather to intercourse with strangers than with a friend. The great calculator
seems this time to have calculated wrongly; the pictures are the work of pupils!
The perpetual goings and comings of artists certainly had also a stimulating
effect on Raphael. As a master of building PERUZZI remained on intimate
terms with him for his own architectural activities also; SEBASTIANO DEL
PIOMBO communicated to him some notion of an art that was poles apart
from him, and perhaps of music also—it was really for the sake of his lute-
playing that Chigi had brought Sebastiano with him from Venice. They
lived, as it seems, side by side in a kind of reciprocity, especially as portrait-
painters, until in the senseless competition for Narbonne the rivalry between
Raphael and Michael Angelo was involved; they became opponents at least,
if not enemies. All this has been handed down to us is carping criticisms of the
Venetian in the letters to Michael Angelo and Raphael’s proud words: “If
Sebastiano allows himself to be helped by Michael Angelo, my victory will be
all the greater.”
The scene of the peaceful activity of all these artists in the “viridarium” or
“suburbanum” of Chigi, the Vigna outside the Porta Settimaniana in the
Trastevere—later famous under the name of the “Farnesina”—was described
by the poet BLOSIO PALLADIO before it was quite finished. We may safely
assume that he understood what he was talking about; his own villa, up the
hill behind St Peter’s, was famous through the setting here provided for himself
and his guests by the intelligence of this witty and cultivated man. “Blosii
villula ter quaterque felix”—Ariosto longs for his daily intercourse with him
and with Bembo, Sadolet and Giovio, and is thinking of him when he praises an
unpretentious and tranquil way of living (Satira V). “Blosius meus Palladius
Romanae urbis delitiae”, the humanist writes of him. The “ornament of Rome”
had in its garden a fountain with marble benches and laurel hedges behind;
there was a path leading uphill through a fragrant grove to the place where
Blosio entertained his friends at table; beside a spring with water from Tibur a
miniature temple surrounded by lemon-trees with a little fountain served as
sideboard, and pillars “in the manner of a theatre” carried a pergola of vines
affording shade. The dwelling with its wealth of art was reached through a
302