The Life and Death of Raphael Sanz di Urbino

For a Renaissance artist of the magnitude of Raphael, very little real factual information is available to present day art historians who must sift through a wealth of myth, legend and sheer invention to establish the truth. In the space of only twenty years, between his first painting commission in 1500 in Umbria to his last in Rome in 1520, when he died, Raphael as a maestro of his art produced up to 132 oil paintings, plus many frescoes and cartoonsCartoon for tapestriesTapestries as well as designing chapels and villas. The esteem in which he was held publicly assured a tomb for him in the PantheonPantheon, the first burial to take place there since its consecration. A survey of his life in Urbino, where he was born, Perugia where he learned his art, Florence and finally Rome is undertaken and the major influences on his life are considered. The life of Raphael as mooted by Vasari in 1550 must be taken cum grano salis, and the statements therein are not to be trusted as in some cases they are merely figments of an author’s overactive imagination. This chapter sets out the verifiable details of Raphael’s life and dispels some of the invention and rumour of earlier accounts. His relationships with the two Popes, Julius II and Leo X, and their influential Cardinals in high office are recounted in terms of the commissioning of his art works and the personae in the Vatican and Rome that were within his circle and sphere of influence and their effect upon the composition of his paintings are described.