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.

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.

The celebrated Cartoons were designs for tapestries, of which more than twenty of various sizes are preserved in the Vatican. The Cartoons, it may be inferred, were equally numerous, but seven only, now fit Hampton Court, remain entire. A portion of another was bequeathed by the late Prince Hoare to the Foundling Hospital, where it is now to be seen. These works owed their existence to the Pope’s love of magnificence rather than to a true taste for art; but although destined for a merely ornamental purpose, some of the designs are among the very finest of Raphael’s inventions, and a few may have been, at least in part, executed by his hand. The Ananias, the Charge to Peter, the Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, and the Paul preaching at Athens, are generally considered to have the greatest pretensions to this additional interest. The fine portrait of Leo with the Cardinals de’ Medici and de’ Rossi completes the list of larger works undertaken for the Pope, but the many designs by Raphael from classical or mythological subjects may be supposed to have been also made at the suggestion of the pontiff. In obedience to his wishes, Raphael undertook the inspection of the ancient Roman monuments, and superintended the improvements of St. Peter’s. Among the numerous and extensive works done for other employers may be mentioned the Sybils in the Chiesa della Pace, the frescoes from Apuleius’s story of Cupid and Psyche in the palace of Agostino Chigi, called the Farnesina, where the so-called Galatea was the beginning of another Cyclus from the same fable, the Madonna del Pesce, the Madonna di S. Sisto, and the Spasimo di Sicilia. Many a palace in the neighbourhood of Rome still exhibits remains of frescoes for which Raphael at least furnished the designs; and his own Casino, near the more modern Villa Borghese, may retain traces of his hand, but it is now fast falling to decay. A long list of portraits might be added to the above works, together with many interesting designs in architecture, and even some productions in sculpture. In reviewing the amazing number of works attributed to Raphael, it must not however be forgotten that many are his only in the invention, and some pictures that bear his name may have been even designed as well as finished by his imitators. The Flemish copies of Raphael are frequent, and are to be detected, among other indications, by their extreme smoothness; the contemporary imitations, especially those of the earlier style of the master, by Domenico Alfani and Vincenzo di S. Geminiano, are much less easily distinguished. The question respecting the Urbino earthenware may be considered to have been set at rest by Passeri (Storia delle pitture in Maiolica di Pesaro e di altri luoghi della Provincia Metaurense). From this inquiry, it appears, first, that the art of painting this ware had not arrived at perfection till twenty years after Raphael’s death: and secondly, that about that time Guid’ Ubaldo II. (della Rovere) collected engravings after Raphael, and even original designs by him, and had them copied in the Urbino manufactory. Battista Franco at one time superintended the execution, and one of the artists was called Raffaello del Colle; his name may perhaps occasionally be inscribed on the Urbino ware, but the initials O. F. (Orazio Fontana) are the most frequent.

The Transfiguration was the last oil picture of importance on which Raphael was employed; it was unfinished at his death, and was afterwards completed, together with various other works, by his scholars. The last and worst misstatement of Vasari cannot be passed over, for unfortunately, none of the biographer’s mistakes have been oftener repeated than that which ascribes the death of this great man to the indulgence of his passion for the Fornarina. Cardinal Antonelli was in possession of an original document, first published by Cancellieri, which assigns a different, and a much more probable, cause for Raphael’s death; it thus concludes,—“Life in him (Raphael) seemed to inform a most fragile bodily structure, for he was all mind; and moreover, his physical forces were much impaired by the extraordinary exertions he had gone through, and which it is wonderful to think he could have made in so short a life. Being then in a very delicate state of health, he received orders one day while at the Farnesina to repair to the court; not to lose time, he ran all the way to the Vatican, and arrived there heated and breathless; there the sudden chill of the vast rooms, where he was obliged to stand long consulting on the alterations of St. Peter’s, checked the perspiration, and he was presently seized with an indisposition. On his return home, he was attacked with a fever, which ended in his death.” Raphael was born and died on Good Friday. Some of his biographers have hence, through an oversight, asserted that he lived exactly thirty-seven years. He was born March 28, 1483, and died April 6, 1520. He was buried in the Pantheon, now the church of Sta. Maria ad Martyres, in a niche or chapel which he had himself endowed. His remains have been lately found there.

QuatremÈre de Quincy’s ‘Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Rafael, etc. Paris, 1824,’ has been improved and superseded by the notes to the Italian translation of Longhena, Milan, 1829. Pungileoni, the author of the ‘Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi, Urbino, 1822,’ has been long employed in preparing a life of Raphael. The observations of Rumohr, in the third volume of his ‘Italienische Forschungen, Berlin, 1831,’ are original and valuable. A few interesting facts will be found in Fea’s ‘Notizie intorno Raffaele Sanzio, Rome 1822.’ The author, however, fails to prove the regularity of Leo’s payments to Raphael, since the latest document concerning the frescoes in the Stanze has the date 1514.

The engraving is from a miniature after the portrait by Raphael himself, in his first manner, cut from the stucco of a wall at Urbino, which forms the chief attraction of the Camera di’ ritratti at Florence. The head engraved by Morghen, and so generally known, represents the features of Bindo Altoviti, which do not even resemble in a single point those of Raphael. The notion arose solely from a passage in Vasari’s Lives:—‘E a Bindo Altoviti fece il ritratto suo;’ for Bindo Altoviti he did his portrait (not his own): these words were distorted by the Editor Bottari in a marginal note; but the error has been decisively exposed by Missirini and others, whose account is every where received in Italy. Nor does it appear that the Tuscans in general fell into the mistake, for the portrait now given, and not, as Bottari asserts, the Altoviti portrait, is engraved in the Museum Florentinum.