DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61022#0083
URBINO
executed, and culture and learning reigned. Raphael was
eventually to find his opportunity in Rome, but, in spite of the
small evidence of his activity at Urbino, it is not unlikely that
before finding it at Rome he came near to it at Urbino. Indeed,
if he did not actually attain his opportunity at Urbino he found
there his road towards it. Serlio,1 the architect, states that the
Duchess of Urbino was Raphael’s first patron, and even if this is
rather an obvious and unfounded inference than a statement of
fact, it remains true that while Perugia gave Raphael not a single
connection or relationship which proved of value in his after-life,
and Florence scarcely gave him a friend who recurs in his Roman
period, almost all the powerful men who made his way easy for
him at Rome were men who are known to have frequented the
Duchess’s famous Court at Urbino.
The book of Raphael’s friend Baldassare Castiglione, called
The Courtier, is a full picture of the Palace life at Urbino
during this period. Elizabeth Gonzaga and her invalid husband
gathered together in Federigo’s castle a group of wits and
statesmen which included all that was best in Italy of the day.
It was a microcosm of the world which gathered together at Rome
under Pope Leo, without the extravagant luxury and the busy
turmoil of the greater city. Among the group which met
together on the imagined occasion of Castiglione’s dialogue were
the most refined and capable of the younger Medici, Julian, the
brother of Leo x., Pietro Bembo, scholar and Platonist, the witty
Bernardo Divizio da Bibbiena and Louis of Canossa, to mention
those only who remained Raphael’s friends throughout his life.
With Castiglione himself Raphael was always intimate. He
painted his portrait once at least, and true and immortal as is
the presentment of the writer in Raphael’s picture, so in The
Courtier, with its generous and sober manners, its serious humour,
and its ideal of a free and dignified nobility based upon a glorifi-
cation of the classic world, Castiglione has given no less perfect
1 Regole, vol. iv., Dedication. He calls her Isabella.
61
executed, and culture and learning reigned. Raphael was
eventually to find his opportunity in Rome, but, in spite of the
small evidence of his activity at Urbino, it is not unlikely that
before finding it at Rome he came near to it at Urbino. Indeed,
if he did not actually attain his opportunity at Urbino he found
there his road towards it. Serlio,1 the architect, states that the
Duchess of Urbino was Raphael’s first patron, and even if this is
rather an obvious and unfounded inference than a statement of
fact, it remains true that while Perugia gave Raphael not a single
connection or relationship which proved of value in his after-life,
and Florence scarcely gave him a friend who recurs in his Roman
period, almost all the powerful men who made his way easy for
him at Rome were men who are known to have frequented the
Duchess’s famous Court at Urbino.
The book of Raphael’s friend Baldassare Castiglione, called
The Courtier, is a full picture of the Palace life at Urbino
during this period. Elizabeth Gonzaga and her invalid husband
gathered together in Federigo’s castle a group of wits and
statesmen which included all that was best in Italy of the day.
It was a microcosm of the world which gathered together at Rome
under Pope Leo, without the extravagant luxury and the busy
turmoil of the greater city. Among the group which met
together on the imagined occasion of Castiglione’s dialogue were
the most refined and capable of the younger Medici, Julian, the
brother of Leo x., Pietro Bembo, scholar and Platonist, the witty
Bernardo Divizio da Bibbiena and Louis of Canossa, to mention
those only who remained Raphael’s friends throughout his life.
With Castiglione himself Raphael was always intimate. He
painted his portrait once at least, and true and immortal as is
the presentment of the writer in Raphael’s picture, so in The
Courtier, with its generous and sober manners, its serious humour,
and its ideal of a free and dignified nobility based upon a glorifi-
cation of the classic world, Castiglione has given no less perfect
1 Regole, vol. iv., Dedication. He calls her Isabella.
61