affection for episcopal government, could disarm the wrath of the
theologians, who continued to wage an unsparing warfare against him, and
to inflict on his reputation, and even on his fortunes, such mischief as
they were able. On the other hand, his singular qualities and talents
failed not to procure him many powerful protectors; and he stood so
balanced (says his biographer) between his friends and his enemies, that
the former were just strong enough to prevent his destruction, the
latter to obstruct his advancement. So that he continued, with a mighty
reputation and a slender fortune, to remain, even to the end of his
days, under the same noble patronage, under which his first distinctions
had been acquired.
But in this comparative obscurity he was consoled by the society of the
learned, the courtesy of the great, and the admiration of almost all
men. Among his personal friends or acquaintances were numbered Francis
Bacon of Verulam, Ben Jonson (who is said to have revised his
Translation of Thucydides), the astronomer Galileo, the antiquarian
Selden, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Harvey, physician to Charles I., Des
Cartes, Gassendi; and his praises were celebrated by the contemporary
muse of Cowley. He was sought by distinguished foreigners who visited
England, even nobles and ambassadors; especially by Cosmo de’ Medici,
then Prince, afterwards Duke of Tuscany, who offered him ample proofs of
his esteem; and there were many among his own compatriots who received
his opinions with respect, if not with favour.
During the long period of his declining life, Hobbes is related to have
pursued with most assiduity his studies in natural philosophy; but the
publications of his old age (if we except the Decameron Physiologicum,
published in 1676) rather indicate a return to his earliest tastes,
which inclined, we are told, to history and poetry. At the age of about
80, he wrote, in English, the _Behemoth_, or History of the Civil Wars
between Charles and the Parliament; besides a long Latin poem on the
origin and increase of the pontifical power. At about 86, he translated
the Odyssey into English verse, and the Iliad at 87: and he persevered
for the four following years, which were his last, in the same peaceful
course of literary recreation. A list of his works, forty-two in number,
is given in Chalmers’ ‘Biographical Dictionary:’ the great majority of
them are forgotten.
He died towards the end of the year 1679, and was buried at
Hault-Bucknall, close by the grave of his faithful patroness, the
Countess of Devonshire. Respecting his personal character and
conversation it is recorded, that he was agreeable and courteous in his
familiar intercourse with all, those alone excepted who approached him
for the mere purpose of disputation: and these he treated with more
severity than was necessary. Above all things, he detested theological
controversy, and always strove to turn his hearers away from it to the
exercise of piety and the practice of Christian morality. His favourite
authors were Homer, Virgil, Thucydides, and Euclid: but his reading was
not extensive; as he thought the careful meditation on a few good works
more profitable to the understanding than a more abundant draught of
indiscriminate learning; and was fond of saying upon this subject, that
if he read as much as others he should be as ignorant as they were. He
persisted in a life of celibacy, that he might be able to pursue his
studies with the less interruption. In his disposition he was generous
and charitable; but his means were scanty: for even at the end of his
life he had little else but two small pensions, the one from the family
of Devon, the other from the king.
[Illustration]
RAPHAEL.
Raffaello Sanzio, the greatest of painters, was born in 1483 at Urbino,
where the house in which he passed the first years of his life is still
preserved, consecrated by a suitable inscription. His first teacher was
his father, Giovanni Sanzio, a painter who, allowing for the technical
imperfections of the time, was perhaps entitled to more praise than
Vasari has awarded him; the evidence of the remaining works of this
master has indeed led his recent biographer, Pungileoni, to conclude
that he was in many essential points equal to the best of his
contemporaries, and that his feeling for expression may have had no
unimportant influence on the genius he was destined to instruct. An
interesting altar-piece by the elder Sanzio still exists at Urbino, in
the church of S. Francesco, representing the Madonna with St. Francis
and other saints: the members of the painter’s family are introduced,
and among them the infant Raphael kneels by his mother’s side.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Thomson._
RAFFAELLE.
_From a Miniature copy of the original Picture in the Gallery at
Florence. In the Possession of the Rev^d. Horace Cholmondeley
Kingston House, Dorchester._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
The silence of the historians of art as to the claims of Giovanni Sanzio
is less surprising than their omitting to notice the importance of his
city and province at the period in question. The duchy of Urbino, at the
close of the fifteenth century, could boast, as Sismondi justly remarks,
a population as warlike, and a court as lettered and polished as any in
Italy. The hereditary dukes of the ancient family of Montefeltro ranked
high among the captains of the age, and among the distinguished patrons
of science. Federigo da Montefeltro, who died a few months before the
birth of Raphael, had employed the talents of some of the best painters
of Italy, and of other countries, to adorn his capital. Among the native
artists, Fra Carnevale was one of the earliest who attempted
perspective; and to him, or at least to his works, Bramante, as well as
Raphael, may have been indebted for a knowledge of the rudiments of
architecture; Pietro della Francesca, whose compositions on mathematics
and geometry enriched the ducal library, was domiciliated with Giovanni
Sanzio; Lucian, a painter and architect of Dalmatia, superintended for a
time the building of the castle; but the most remarkable guest was
Justus van Ghent, called by the Italians Giusto da Guanto; a
considerable work painted by him contained portraits of the Duke
Federigo and his successor Guid’ Ubaldo, under whose auspices again the
talents of the celebrated Luca Signorelli were put in requisition.
Pictures by most of these artists probably still exist at Urbino, and
undoubtedly were seen and studied by Raphael in his early youth. Among
the first reputed works of the great artist himself, which are preserved
in his native city, may be mentioned a Madonna, originally painted on
the wall in his father’s house, and a holy family on wood in the church
of S. Andrea.
It is difficult to fix with precision the time when Raphael first
studied under Perugino; but if, as Rumohr supposes, that painter only
settled finally at Perugia about 1500, his distinguished scholar must
have joined him at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and not some years
earlier, as has been generally assumed. Even at this age it is
sufficiently wonderful that the scholar should have been fitted to
select the best qualities in his master’s style, and indeed very soon to
improve upon them.
Besides the works which his native city contained, Raphael doubtless had
had opportunities of seeing the productions of Andrea Luigi di Assisi,
called Ingegno, of Niccolò di Fuligno, and other painters of the school
of Umbria. Their robust style of colour, which was somewhat modified by
Perugino and Pinturicchio, is occasionally to be traced in Raphael’s
early works. There was another quality which Perugino, in his best time,
possessed in common with other painters of his province, and which may
be said generally to characterize the school of Umbria. This was an
intensity of expression in sacred subjects indicating a deep religious
feeling; and it is so striking in the best productions of the artist
last named, that it has been considered sufficient of itself to prove
the orthodoxy of his creed, which Vasari had called in question. The
impulse was probably derived from Assisi, where some of the earliest
Italian masters had left specimens of their powers, and the source was
the doctrine of St. Francis. The history and legends of this saint (who
died in 1226), frequently exercised the pencil of the early Italians,
even to the danger of causing Bible subjects to be neglected, from the
time of Giotto to that of Angelico da Fiesole: but the chief influence
on the school above-mentioned is apparent rather in the treatment than
in the subject; it is to be recognised in a certain subdued earnestness
of expression, allied to the severe tenets of the saint of Assisi, and
exhibiting religion rather in its suffering than in its triumphant
character. This tendency received an additional impulse from the works
which Taddeo di Bartolo of Siena had left in Perugia and other parts of
Umbria early in the fifteenth century. The painters most remarkable for
the quality alluded to were Niccolò Alunno, called Niccolò di Fuligno,
and Pietro Perugino; but the same feeling had extended itself to Francia
in Bologna. The taste of the Florentine painters on the other hand, with
the single exception of Angelico da Fiesole, had long taken another
direction: their pictures of this time abound in portraits; the saints
and Madonnas of the school, those for instance of Domenico Ghirlandajo,
seem to have been taken from common nature, and are seldom inspired with
that sanctity of expression so frequent and so remarkable in the
painters above-named. In later times, the painters of the various
Italian schools, who were supposed to copy nature with too little
selection, were called _naturalisti_, and, at the period alluded to,
Florence may be considered comparatively the seat of this kind of
imitation; a tendency greatly owing, it appears, to the introduction of
early Flemish pictures, in which portraits were frequent, and in which
the back-ground and accessories were treated with an attention new to
the Italian painters.
Thus it cannot but be considered among the greatest of Raphael’s
advantages, that he had opportunities of studying in both the schools
alluded to; and in both, he of all men knew or felt what was fittest to
be imitated. The depth and fervour of expression which he imbibed from
the masters he first contemplated, and which he never relinquished, was
improved and enlivened by the accurate study of the forms and varieties
of nature to which the Florentines were devoted: again, before Raphael
arrived in Florence, Lionardo da Vinci had laid the foundation of that
profound anatomical knowledge, the only true means of representing
action, which was afterwards carried to its greatest results in the
works of Michael Angelo. The celebrated Cartoons of both these great
designers were the object of study and admiration in Florence at the
time Raphael resided there, although they were not completed quite so
soon as might be inferred from a passage in Vasari. The importance of
considering and accounting for the earliest tendency of Raphael’s
feeling, will be apparent when we remember that it reappeared in his
later, and even in his latest, works. The Dispute of the Sacrament, his
altar-pieces, and even the Cartoons, are not Florentine in their taste,
but are rather allied to the school from which he derived his first
impressions.
From 1500, or perhaps a little earlier, to 1504–5, Raphael was employed
at Perugia, or at Città di Castello (a township midway between Perugia
and Urbino); his works in the latter place must, however, have been
executed after he became a pupil of Perugino, as they clearly evince an
imitation of that painter’s manner. An altar-piece, originally in the
church of S. Niccola di Tolentino, at Città di Castello, is now in the
Vatican; a Crucifixion from the church of S. Domenico, in the same
place, is in the Fesch collection at Rome; and the celebrated Marriage
of the Virgin, from the church of S. Francesco, is at Milan. The last,
which was copied almost without alteration from a painting of Perugino,
has the date 1504, and immediately precedes Raphael’s first visit to
Florence.
The works done by Raphael in Perugia were much more numerous, to say
nothing of his assistance in pictures which pass for Perugino’s. Among
his own may be mentioned an Assumption of the Virgin, now in the
Vatican, as well as another picture of the same subject begun by
Raphael, but finished, not till after his death, by his scholars. The
fresco, in the cloister of S. Severo, at Perugia, which resembles the
upper part of the _Disputa_ (to be hereafter mentioned), has the date
1505; the lower part was finished by Perugino when very old, after
Raphael’s death. The style of this fresco bespeaks an acquaintance with
higher examples of art than Perugia contained; it was probably done
after a first visit to Florence. The interesting picture at Blenheim,
mentioned by Vasari as having been painted for the chapel Degli Ansidei,
in the church De’ Servi at Perugia, has the date 1505; it may be
considered to be the last example of Raphael’s imitation of Perugino,
and to mark the transition from that imitation to the Florentine manner.
While Raphael was studying at Perugia, Pinturicchio, a native of that
place, and an assistant of Perugino, was employed to paint some subjects
relating to the Life of Pius II., in the library, now the sacristy, of
the Duomo at Siena. Vasari relates, not without contradicting himself in
the separate lives of Raphael and Pinturicchio, that the latter availed
himself of his young friend’s skill in composition, in engaging him to
design the whole series of subjects; he further adds, that Raphael
accompanied Pinturicchio to Siena, but left him to proceed to Florence,
in order to see the Cartoons of Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Vinci.
The works in the sacristy at Siena appear to have been done before the
death of Pius III., in 1503: at that time the Cartoons in question were
not completed (M. Angelo’s was not finished and publicly shown before
1506, Vinci’s not much earlier); and as we have before seen, Raphael was
employed at Città di Castello in 1504, probably before he had seen
Florence at all. It is however certain that Raphael made some designs
for Pinturicchio, since two small compositions, almost identical with
the frescoes at Siena, and other separate studies by his hand exist,
although various reasons, too long to adduce here, render it extremely
improbable that he was ever employed at Siena. The vast number of works
which this great man executed in his very short life, make it
sufficiently difficult to assign time enough for the production of those
that are undoubted.
The amiable character, as well as the extraordinary talents of Raphael,
soon procured him the notice and admiration of the Florentine artists.
Among his chief friends were Taddeo Gaddi (in return for whose
hospitality he probably painted the Madonna del Gran Duca and the
Madonna Tempi), Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, and Fra Bartolommeo. It would be
impossible here to give a list of the works which he executed during his
residence in Florence from 1504–5 to 1508, when we find him in Rome.
Some pictures were left unfinished at the time of his departure for that
city, and were completed by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo. A picture sent to
Siena, by some supposed the Giardiniera, now at Paris, but more probably
the Lanti Madonna, was among these, as well as the Madonna painted for
the Dei family: an accurate critic, Rumohr, even supposes that the
celebrated entombment done for Perugia, which is now in the Borghese
palace in Rome, was completed from Raphael’s designs by Ridolfo
Ghirlandajo. The number of Madonnas, portraits, and altar-pieces
produced in the three or four years of Raphael’s residence in Florence,
must of necessity lead to the conclusion that the _repetitions_ of these
works, which all pretend to originality, must have been done by his
imitators. Again Vasari states, not without some probability, that
Raphael visited his native place, and painted several works there for
the Duke Guid’ Ubaldo, during the short time above-mentioned: and
Malvasia, in his account of the Bolognese school, enumerates various
works which were unknown even to Vasari.
Meanwhile Raphael reaped all the improvement which the sight of the
excellent works of art in Florence was calculated to communicate. The
inspection of the works of Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Vinci enlarged
his knowledge of form and his execution, while the inventions of the
earlier Florentine masters were diligently examined and remembered; yet
it is here important to remark, that he never imitated even the highest
examples alluded to, as he had imitated the first models from which he
studied. This is naturally to be accounted for in some degree by the
greater docility of earlier youth; but as so much has been said of the
inspiration which Raphael caught from Michael Angelo, in Florence from a
sight of the Cartoons, and in Rome from that of the ceiling of the
Capella Sistina, it is necessary to remember that a direct imitation of
Michael Angelo is no where to be traced in Raphael, and that he seemed
desirous rather of exhibiting his own feeling as distinct from that of
the great Florentine master, than of aiming at that master’s style.
From 1508 to 1520, the year of his death, Raphael resided in Rome.
Vasari relates that Bramante, the architect of Julius II., being from
the same city with Raphael and distantly related to him, had recommended
him to the Pope, as qualified to paint in fresco certain rooms of the
Vatican; but it was more probably Raphael’s great reputation, now second
to none, which was the real cause of the Pope’s notice, although
Bramante may have been the medium of communication. To the honour of
Julius it should be remembered, that he had discernment enough to fix in
every instance on the best artists of his age, and he left no means
unemployed, sometimes even to an indulgence at variance with the
haughtiness of his character, to secure their best efforts in his
service.
At no period of Raphael’s laborious life were his exertions greater than
during the reign of Julius II., that is, till 1513, the year of that
pontiff’s death. The room called the Camera della Segnatura, where the
great artist began to work, was evidently planned by him as one design,
and its four walls were appropriated to four comprehensive
subjects,—theology, philosophy, poetry, and jurisprudence. The ceiling
is occupied with single figures and subjects forming part of the same
scheme. The subject of Theology, commonly called the _Disputa_, was
begun the first, and the right hand of the upper part was first painted.
This is evident from a certain inexperience in the mechanical process of
fresco painting, which is found to disappear even in the same work. Six
of these vast subjects, besides other works, were executed between 1508
and 1513, and the two last, the Miracle of Bolsena and the Heliodorus,
are unsurpassed in colour, as well as in every other excellence fitted
for the subject and dimensions. For richness and force of local colour
these two works have often been compared to those of Titian; it should
be added that they are earlier in date than the finest oil pictures of
Titian, and that they are decidedly superior in colour to the frescoes
by that master in Padua. The supposition of Rumohr, that Giorgione may
have seen and profited by these specimens, is, however, not to be
reconciled with the date of that painter’s death. The impatience of the
character of Julius, who was bent on the speedy prosecution of this
undertaking, makes it probable that some works attributed by Vasari to
this period were executed later. The portrait of Julius, that of Bindo
Altoviti, the musician in the Sciarra palace, the Madonna di Fuligno,
the Madonna della Sedia, and the Vision of Ezekiel, belong however to
this time. The St. Cecilia, begun in 1513, was not sent to Bologna till
some years afterwards. In the last, the assistance of subordinate hands
is evident; and the variety of works in which Raphael was employed under
Leo X. made this practice of intrusting the execution of his designs to
others more and more necessary. Unfortunately, his grand works, the
frescoes of the Vatican, with the exception of two excellent specimens,
the Attila and the Liberation of Peter (painted immediately after the
accession of Leo), were completed very much in this way by his scholars.
Even the Incendio del Borgo, so remarkable for its invention and
composition, has but few traces of his own hand in the execution. The
frescoes of the Vatican have often been described as exhibiting one
comprehensive plan as to their meaning, but it is well known that the
subjects of the Attila and the Liberation of Peter were suggested by
incidents in the life of Leo, and consequently that they could not have
been thought of before the accession of that pope. Of all these works
the Attila is justly considered to be the most perfect example of fresco
painting, and to exhibit the greatest command over the material; though
produced after the death of Julius, it may be regarded as the noblest
result of that impulse which the pontiff’s energy had communicated to
Raphael. The character of Leo X., as a protector of art, has been
perhaps sometimes too favourably represented. More educated than his
predecessor, he loved the refinement which the arts and letters imparted
to his court; but he had no deep interest, like Julius, in inciting such
men as Raphael and Michael Angelo to do their utmost under his auspices.
Whether from the indifference of Leo, or from his neglecting, as Vasari
hints, to discharge his pecuniary debts to Raphael, we soon find the
painter employed in various other works, and the remaining frescoes of
the Vatican bear evidence of the frequent employment of other hands.
Many works of minor importance in the same palace were entirely executed
by his assistants.