Raphael

28 March 1483 to 6 April 1520 –

Raffaello Santi’s “greatest paintings seem so effortless that one does not usually connect them with the idea of hard and relentless work…there is nothing strained or sophisticated in the composition. It looks as if it could not be otherwise, and as if it had so existed from the beginning of time.”*

Quoth Vasari: “O happy and blessed spirit, in that every man is glad to speak of thee, to celebrate thy actions, and to admire every drawing that thou didst leave to us!”

And the Count said, “…both painting and carving are made also to set out a thing, and in this point hath painting a great deale the upper hand…”

Then answered John Christopher: I believe verily you think not as you speake, and all this doe you for your Raphaelles sake.”

The Count saide laughing: I speak not for Raphaelles sake…I speake of the arte, and not of the Artificiers.”^

Raphael is entombed in the Pantheon of Rome:

“This is Raphael’s tomb, while he lived he made Mother Nature Fear to be vanquished by him and, as he died, to die too.”

[* E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art, (1994), pp. 241-242.] [^ Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (1528), First Book.]