Raphael in Rome

You’ve seen, of course, the Raphael Rooms on your way to the Sistine Chapel. And you’ve admired his paintings in the pinacoteca of the Vatican Museums: his Resurrection, his Coronations of the Virgin, and his superb Transfiguration. What? You haven’t? Run, run, run, as fast as your legs can carry you, run to the west, to the Museums, slap down your money, run round the spiral staircase, and marvel at his masterworks. But then, when you have seen them all and are still left insatiable (ah, gentle reader, we know you but too well), come back here, right here to this very article, and learn where to see the Rest of Raphael in Rome.

Raphael Sanzio was born in the city of Urbino in 1483. He trained under Pietro Perugino and did a variety of early works in both Perugia and Florence, some of which can now be seen in Rome, including his Portrait of a Man and the Lady with a Unicorn. He learned a great deal from watching Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both working contemporaneously. The still young Raphael came fully into his own, however, when he came to Rome in 1508 at the request of the architect Bramante and Pope Julius II, who wanted him to paint his apartments in the Vatican, now commonly known as the Raphael Rooms (more precisely the Stanza della Segnatura, Stanza di Eliodoro, and Stanza dell’Incendio) in the Vatican Museums. For this work, he became justly famous; after its completion, he was the hot young painter in the city. Agostino Chigi, the fantastically wealthy Florentine banker, hired Raphael to paint his new villa by the Tiber, what became known as the Villa Farnesina. In 1513, after Bramante died, Pope Leo X gave Raphael the thankless job of designing St. Peter’s, while in 1515, the Pope put him in charge of supervising the city’s monuments, which were falling prey to neglect and Romans looking for a quick tufa fix. Raphael, still busy with the Villa Farnesina, didn’t get very far with either, though he did recommend a Latin cross floorplan for St. Peter’s. His life was cut short when he caught the flu and died in1520. Raphael is buried in the Pantheon.

Our walking tour presents all of Raphael’s work in Rome that’s open to the public aside from that in the Vatican Museums. If you can resist the temptation to linger in the galleries, you shouldn’t have any trouble covering the itinerary in more than four hours. Because the Villa Farnesina is only open in the morning, it’s best to start early. Note as well that the Villa Farnesina is closed Sundays and Mondays (the Doria-Pamphilj and Palazzo Barberini are also closed on Monday), and that during high season it may be prudent to book in advance for the Villa Borghese.  With those caveats, we’re off!

1. The house of the Fornarina.

Start your Raphael tour bright and early with an inspection of the home of his mistress, La Fornarina (the Baker’s Daughter). During his time spent painting the Villa Farnesina, Raphael was obsessed to distraction with this woman; the exasperated Agostino Chigi finally had her installed in the villa so that Raphael wouldn’t stray. What was once (putatively) the house of the Baker in question is now a restaurant with the attractive name of Romolo in Il Giardino della Fornarina.Since it’s early: grab a cappuccino at the bar across the street and look at the restaurant to your heart’s delight. More about her later.

2. The Villa Farnesina

The Villa Farnesina is one of the lesser-known treasures of Rome, in scope and ambition suggesting a private Sistine Chapel. Agostino Chigi had Baldassare Peruzzi build him a villa on the relatively deserted shores of the Tiber beneath the Janiculum where its splendour would have to compete with no others. He hired Raphael to design frescoes for the building. The first room the visitor walks into is the Loggia of Galatea; named because of Raphael’s marvelous Triumph of Galatea, on the cover of this month’s magazine; it’s certainly of of the painter’s finest works. Leaving the Loggia di Galatea, one comes to the Loggia di Psyche. While Raphael did not do most of the painting in this loggia (being too occupied with other things), he designed the ceiling frescoes, showing the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, an allegory of the marriage of Agostino Chigi to his wife, a commoner: by marrying Chigi she was becoming, in effect, a god, like Psyche did.  Agostino (nicknamed “Il Magnifico”) was not afraid to boast. And the frescoes are marvelous.

3. Santa Maria della Pace

In 1511, Raphael snuck into the unfinished Sistine Chapel and was riveted by Michelangelo’s work. The fresco about the arch of the first chapel on the right of Santa Maria della Pace reflects this. The fresco depicts sibyls much like those of the Sistine Chapel; Raphael adds angels, one of his token touches. Raphael’s work here was also done for Agostino Chigi: Agostino knew a good thing when he saw it.

4. Sant’Agostino

Like his work in Santa Maria della Pace, the Isaiah Raphael painted on the third pillar on the left of the nave of Sant’Agostino wears big M.’s influence on his sleeve. Isaiah could almost pass for an extra from the Sistine, though the cherubs are a bit too precious for Michelangelo.

On the way to the Doria-Pamphilj, you can drop in at the Pantheon and pay your respects at Mr. Sanzio’s grave.

5. Galleria Doria-Pamphilj

The Doria-Pamphilj Gallery sports just one painting by Raphael, but it’s a fine one: a double portrait of two well-dressed men, thought to be members of the papal court. The double portrait was a Flemish convention: again Raphael manages to capture all the right influences to make his own style.

6. Santa Maria del Popolo

Raphael never became as known for his architecture as Michelangelo did, but the few instances of it that remain are worth seeking out. One of these is the Chigi (again, Agostino) chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. Raphael designed the chapel as well as the mosaics on the ceiling, though some details were completed much later by the multifaceted Baroque genius Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The small golden dome is particularly excellent.

7.Galleria Borghese

Scipione Borghese grabbed three excellent early Raphaels for his private picture gallery. Upstairs in the pinacoteca, you’ll find his Deposition of Christ, a rather unassuming Portrait of a Man, and the Lady with a Unicorn. Someone after Raphael turned the Lady with a Unicorn into St. Catherine, but a 1935 restoration gave the Lady back her Unicorn, though we don’t know who the Lady in question is. Nor do we know who the sitter is for the Portrait of a Man, though it’s thought that it might be Perugino. The Deposition, which shows the direct influence of Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo, once hung in a church in Perugia; the crafty Scipione had the good sense to steal it from the poor Perugians.

8. Palazzo Barberini

In the Palazzo Barberini is the lady herself: La Fornarina, or at least that’s what everyone thinks: Raphael didn’t title this (recently restored) painting, and the exact identity of La Fornarina is still unknown. It should be noted, however, that the model in this painting is clearly the same model as his Portrait of a Woman in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence (see for yourself on the bottom left). The armband that La Fornarina sports is signed with Raphael’s name. On his deathbed, Raphael renounced his exploits of the womanly variety and reconciled himself to the Church; he did, however, have the good grace to provide for La Fornarina in his will. “Thy wondrous skill,” wrote Baldassare Castiglione on the death of Raphael, “Rome’s riven frame hath mended.” Not quite true, because Raphael never got around to restoring the ruins. He did make the city more beautiful, though.

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