In 1508, Julius II called Raffaello Santi (or Sanzio), known as
Raphael(1483–1520) in English, to the papal court in Rome. Born
in a small town in Umbria near Urbino, Raphael probably learned the
rudiments of his art from his father, Giovanni Santi, a painter con-
nected with the ducal court of Federico da Montefeltro (see Chap-
ter 21), before entering the studio of Perugino in Perugia. Although
strongly influenced by Perugino, Leonardo, and others, Raphael de-
veloped an individual style that exemplifies the ideals of High Renais-
sance art.
MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN Among Raphael’s early works is
Marriage of the Virgin(FIG. 22-7), which he painted for the Chapel of
Saint Joseph in the church of San Francesco in Città di Castello, south-
east of Florence. The subject is a fitting one for a chapel dedicated to
Saint Joseph. According to the Golden Legend (a 13th-century collec-
tion of stories about the lives of the saints), Joseph competed with
other suitors for Mary’s hand. The high priest was to give the Virgin to
whichever suitor presented to him a rod that had miraculously
bloomed. Raphael depicted Joseph with his flowering rod in his left
hand. In his right hand Joseph holds the wedding ring he is about to
place on Mary’s finger. Other virgins congregate at the left, and the un-
successful suitors stand on the right. One of them breaks his rod in
half over his knee in frustration, giving Raphael an opportunity to
demonstrate his mastery of foreshortening. The perspective system he
High and Late Renaissance 58522-9Raphael,Philosophy(School of Athens), Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Rome, Italy, 1509–1511. Fresco, 19 27 .
Raphael included himself in this gathering of great philosophers and scientists whose self-assurance conveys calm reason. The setting resembles
the interior of the new Saint Peter’s (FIG. 24-5).
1 ft.used is the one he learned from Perugino (FIG. 21-40). The temple in
the background is Raphael’s version of a centrally planned building
(FIG. 22-22), featuring Brunelleschian arcades (FIG. 21-31).
MADONNA IN THE MEADOWRaphael spent the four years
from 1504 to 1508 in Florence. There, still in his early 20s, he discov-
ered that the painting style he had learned so painstakingly from Pe-
rugino was already outmoded (as was Brunelleschi’s architectural
style). Florentine crowds flocked to the church of Santissima Annun-
ziata to see Leonardo’s recently unveiled cartoon of the Virgin, Christ
Child, Saint Anne, and Saint John (probably an earlier version ofFIG.
22-3). Under Leonardo’s influence, Raphael began to modify the
Madonna compositions he had learned in Umbria. In Madonna in
the Meadow (FIG. 22-8) of 1505–1506, Raphael adopted Leonardo’s
pyramidal composition and modeling of faces and figures in subtle
chiaroscuro. Yet the Umbrian artist placed the large, substantial fig-
ures in a Peruginesque landscape, with his former master’s typical
feathery trees in the middle ground. Although Raphael experimented
with Leonardo’s dusky modeling, he tended to return to Perugino’s
lighter tonalities and blue skies. Raphael preferred clarity to obscu-
rity, not fascinated, as Leonardo was, with mystery.
SCHOOL OF ATHENSThree years after completing Madonna
in the Meadow,Raphael received one of the most important paint-
ing commissions (FIG. 22-9) Julius II awarded—the decoration of22-8AANDREA
DELSARTO,
Madonna of the
Harpies,1517.