DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51585#0099
RAPHAEL SANZIO d’uBBINO. 95
Florence, leaving his friends Bartolomeo and Ghir-
landajo to complete his unfinished pictures, and
immediately on his arrival at Rome he commenced
the greatest of his works, the Chambers (Camere)
of the Vatican.
In general, when Raphael undertook any great
work illustrative of sacred or profane history, he
did not hesitate to ask advice of his learned and
literary friends on points of costume or chronology :
but when he began his paintings in the Vatican he
Was wholly unassisted, and the plan which he laid
before the pope, and which was immediately ap-
proved and adopted, shows that the grasp and cul-
tivation of his mind equalled his powers as a
painter. He dedicated this first saloon, called in
Italian the Camera della Segnatura, to the glory
of those high intellectual pursuits which may be
said to embrace in some form or other all human
culture—he represented Theology, Poetry, Philo-
S0Phy, and Jurisprudence.
And first on the ceiling he painted in four circles
four allegorical female figures with characteristic
symbols, throned amid clouds, and attended by
beautiful genii. Of these the figure of Poetry is
distinguished by superior grandeur and inspiration.
Beneath these figures and on the four sides of the
room he painted four great pictures, each about
fifteen feet high by twenty or twenty-five feet wide,
the subjects illustrating historically the four allego-
Florence, leaving his friends Bartolomeo and Ghir-
landajo to complete his unfinished pictures, and
immediately on his arrival at Rome he commenced
the greatest of his works, the Chambers (Camere)
of the Vatican.
In general, when Raphael undertook any great
work illustrative of sacred or profane history, he
did not hesitate to ask advice of his learned and
literary friends on points of costume or chronology :
but when he began his paintings in the Vatican he
Was wholly unassisted, and the plan which he laid
before the pope, and which was immediately ap-
proved and adopted, shows that the grasp and cul-
tivation of his mind equalled his powers as a
painter. He dedicated this first saloon, called in
Italian the Camera della Segnatura, to the glory
of those high intellectual pursuits which may be
said to embrace in some form or other all human
culture—he represented Theology, Poetry, Philo-
S0Phy, and Jurisprudence.
And first on the ceiling he painted in four circles
four allegorical female figures with characteristic
symbols, throned amid clouds, and attended by
beautiful genii. Of these the figure of Poetry is
distinguished by superior grandeur and inspiration.
Beneath these figures and on the four sides of the
room he painted four great pictures, each about
fifteen feet high by twenty or twenty-five feet wide,
the subjects illustrating historically the four allego-