Rafael Sanzio: Biography Of This Great Renaissance Painter
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) considered Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520), also known as Raphael of Urbino due to his origin, as the great reference in the history of art. It is no secret that the French painter was notably inspired by the work of the Renaissance man who, on the other hand, inspired many other artists.
Rafael Sanzio is one of the great painters of the Renaissance He built his initial work drawing on masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and achieved his own, very personal style, imbued with an aura of magnetic beauty that leaves no one indifferent. His short life (he died at the age of thirty-seven) did not prevent him from creating a large-scale artistic corpus, which we review, along with his biography, below.
Brief biography of Rafael Sanzio, the great painter of the Italian Renaissance
He is often cited along with the other two great names of the Italian Quattrocento and Cinquecento: Leonardo and Michelangelo. Both were quite older than him (especially Leonardo) and already had a long career when a young Rafael, barely twenty years old, arrived in Florence. The boy, who, according to many experts, had learned the rudiments of painting from his father, a fresco painter, was absolutely amazed by the creations that these two artistic geniuses had spread throughout the city; especially, the paintings of the Palazzo Vecchio. He then begins a brilliant career that will end tragically and prematurely in 1520.
Who was Raphael Sanzio, also known as Raphael of Urbino? In today’s biography we present the life and work of this great reference of Renaissance painting of the 16th century. We hope you enjoy reading it.
The Orphan of Urbino
Rafael Sanzio was born in Urbino, a small city in central Italy where his father, Giovanni Santi, was painter to the Dukes of Montefeltro. The court of Urbino was well known for its exquisite refinement and vast culture, both praised by Baldassare de Castiglione (1478-1529) in his work The courtiera real best-seller Renaissance. The social circle of the dukes endowed the very young Rafael with extensive knowledge and refined manners which Giorgio Vasari would later highlight in his Lives.
According to some testimonies (including Giorgio Vasari), the young man would have been in the workshop of Pietro Perugino (1448-1523), perhaps as an assistant, since the year 1500, although other authors cite Timoteo Viti (1469-1523), a native also from Urbino, especially after Raphael was orphaned by his father in 1494. At the age of seventeen we find him already in Florence, where he has the opportunity to contemplate the magnificent works of Leonardo and Michelangelo, which greatly impress him, and from which he takes formal aspects. for later styling.
The first major commission: the papal rooms of the Vatican
Julius II had moved in 1507 to his own quarters in the Vatican, for whose decoration he summoned excellent painters, such as Perugino. The following year, in 1508, Raphael was called to Rome to continue the work, so the young painter had to abandon the works he had started in Florence. What led the pope to become interested in a still unknown artist? According to some authors, Raphael’s benefactor, the architect Bramante, probably had a lot to do with it.
The spectacular The School of Athens and its partner, the no less magnificent The Dispute of the Sacrament, both located in the so-called stanza della segnatura, were the first works that the young painter from Urbino undertook once he arrived in Rome. Both represent, together with Parnassus and The cardinal virtues, four of the areas of knowledge of the time. The first represents philosophy and shows several ancient philosophers surrounding the two great sages: Plato and Aristotle.
The first, referring to ideas, points upward, while the second shows the path of physics and points to the ground. The sacrament dispute symbolizes religion; Parnassuspoetry (where the central figures are Apollo and the Muses) and, finally, in The Cardinal Virtues, law is represented, where the four cardinal virtues surround Justice.
Formally, Raphael’s frescoes from the stanza della segnatura “break” the limits of the representation space, since several characters “stand out” and seem to escape the framework of the composition. On the other hand, the mathematical perspective developed by Brunelleschi in the 15th century is masterfully solved.
Excellent soul catcher
Raphael’s absolute mastery as a portrait painter is evident in the numerous portraits he made; among them, those of Julius II, the client of the rooms. In the famous portrait of 1511-1512, the Urbino painter shows the pontiff seated, with a dejected appearance, which is a considerable departure from previous papal representations in profile. Julius II shows no sign of his papal authority, and is represented as an old man with a long white beard and a serious, lean face.
Another of Raphael’s most excellent portraits is that of his friend Baldassare de Castiglione (1478-1526), humanist, writer and diplomat who also lived in Urbino, famous for his work The courtier. Raphael presents Castiglione as an authentic Renaissance courtier, elegantly dressed (not in vain, he was a diplomat of one of the most refined courts in Europe, that of the Dukes of Urbino). From Leonardo, Raphael has taken the three-quarter portrait, which he will repeat on other occasions. The dark and austere colors of the work give a certain serenity and calm to the character, who looks at us almost inquisitively with his intensely blue eyes.
La Fornarinaexecuted around 1518 (that is, just two years before the painter’s death), is considered by most experts to be a portrait of his lover, Margherita Luti, who was the daughter of a baker (fornaio). The pearl hanging from the woman’s turban seems to corroborate this, since margarita means pearl in Greek. The young woman bears a great resemblance to the woman in another of her portraits, the famous Veiled Lady, so some scholars believe that she is the same person. Due to the characteristics of the portrait, it is possible that it was painted for intimate use.
Margherita appears with half her body naked, modestly covering herself with transparent fabrics. On the bracelet that she wears on her left arm you can read Raphael Urbinas (Rafael de Urbino), which leaves no doubt about the authorship of the work.
Rafael’s love life is not fully documented. It is known that he never married, although he was engaged for years to Maria Bibbiena, a relative of the Medici Why the wedding never took place remains one of the questions of its existence. As for her lovers, the most stable was the aforementioned Margherita Luti, with whom she was seen until her premature death and who, by the way, only survived him for two years.
Madonnas and mythology
In the mid-1510s, Raphael enjoyed undisputed success in Roman circles. The commissioning of the papal stays has caused the high echelons of Rome to become interested in him and his work, and in those years he was inundated with commissions In addition to portraits, Rafael paints numerous Madonna, with a classical monumentality and a vivid color inspired by the Venetian school. More than remarkable is its Sistine Madonna, where Rafael achieves a perfect atmosphere and absolute harmony of form and color. On the other hand, his table known as The beautiful gardenerwhich represents the Virgin, the Child and Saint John inserted in a delicate landscape, has undeniable Leonardesque reminiscences.
In addition to religious painting, the Urbino artist also cultivated another of the most common genres of the Renaissance: mythological painting. Remarkable is its famous Galatea either Galatea’s triumpha beautiful fresco made for the Villa Farnesina palace, in Rome.
The perfect composition, together with the harmony of the tones (based on a limpid navy blue, from which the ochres and pinks of the characters’ flesh stand out) make this work one of the painter’s most important. It represents Galatea, a Nereid, triumphantly rising on a shell and surrounded by marine mythological characters.
One of the unknown facets of Rafael is his work as an architect In 1514, after the death of his protector, the architect Donato Bramante, Raphael took charge of the design of the new St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. The design of the Urbino one did not go beyond a project, but it gives an idea of Raphael’s “Renaissance” ability to fully dedicate himself to various disciplines, as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Brunelleschi also did.
Death in full glory
In 1520, the year of his death, Raphael created what would be his last work, The Transfiguration; Originally executed for the Narbonne Cathedral, it will never leave for France. The cardinal who commissioned the painting kept it, later donating it to the church of San Pietro in Montorio, in Rome.
The two sections into which the work is divided show, in the upper part, Christ in glory surrounded by the prophets Moses and Elijah and, in the lower part, the scene of the demon-possessed child whom Christ cures.
On April 6, 1520, Good Friday, Raphael died prematurely in Rome. That same day he had turned thirty-seven years old.
According to a story by Vasari, the cause of his death would have been fever resulting from “excessive sexual activity” with his lover. La Fornarina. Leaving aside this more than dubious testimony, the real causes of the death of the painter from Urbino, who left this world in full glory, are unknown. His pictorial legacy remains for posterity, admired by all who followed him. Although there were also artists who rejected it; This is the case of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who, as their name indicates, claimed painting “before Raphael”, since they considered the artist from Urbino as one of the first corrupters of the “pure” art of the Middle Ages. As always, for tastes, colors.
