Having thus illustrated the divine origin of man's chief faculties, and of ecclesiastical authority, Raffaele in the two remaining rooms exchanged allegory for historical delineation. That called the Stanza del Incendio shows us the Coronation of Charlemagne by Leo III., and the justification of that Pontiff on oath in presence of the same Emperor; the Victory of Leo IV. over the Saracens at Ostia, and his supernaturally staying a conflagration which threatened the basilicon of St. Peter,—a theme belonging rather to the category of the second room. The ceiling here, having been executed by Perugino, and reverently spared by Raffaele from the sweeping sentence of Julius, has no immediate bearing upon these subjects, though full of fervid feeling.
The last and largest of the suite is called the Hall of Constantine, whose religious history is there delineated in four leading scenes: his Baptism, by St. Silvester; his Vision of the Cross before Battle; his Victory over Maxentius at the Ponte Milvio; and his Donation of Rome and its temporalities to the successors of St. Peter. The roof, of posterior date and far inferior merit, has nothing to do with Raffaele's creations.
This meagre outline may indicate the leading theme of these the grandest compositions of modern art; but to form an idea of their difficulties, of the varied and profound knowledge they display, of the many noble episodes they embrace, and of all the interesting portraits they embody, demands no brief or light study, no ordinary learning or accomplishment. Nor is it easy to appreciate their technical merits or artistic beauties, vast as is their extent, with baffling and insufficient cross-lights, and a surface considerably impaired. Hence the general disappointment felt by casual and superficial visitors, and the superior gratification afforded by good engravings of the series. In these, and in the not less perfect tapestry-cartoons which it is the privilege of our country to possess, may be appreciated Raffaele's unity of composition, his symmetrical and unostentatious design, his full contours and flowing lines, and the earnest but unaffected sensibility which distinguishes his transcendent works.
That the whole sixteen mural paintings and two of the ceilings were designed by Raffaele is beyond question; the portions executed by himself, and those assigned to his pupils, are matter of keen controversy, upon which we need not enter. It is, however, agreed that the Camera della Segnatura, and half that of Heliodorus, belong to the reign of Julius, whilst the Stanza del Incendio was painted under Leo X., when Sanzio's manifold employments and commissions obliged him to entrust too much to his scholars. Of the Sala di Costantino only two figures, painted in oil as an experiment, had been finished when premature death closed his career of glory. The price allowed for each fresco seems to have been about 1200 ducats of gold.[183] Theology, the earliest of the series, painted immediately on his arrival at Rome, has most of the freshness and devotional sentiment of his early genius and Umbrian education. It and the Philosophy are most pregnant with abstruse scholarship, drawn in part from the learned companionship of Duke Guidobaldo's court. The glowing and harmonious colouring of the Heliodorus, and Miracle of Bolsena fully equals any known production of Venetian art; and in the Incendio, the Heliodorus, and the Battle of Maxentius, we have the energy and vigour of Michael Angelo, without his exaggerations. In all may be seen the vast stride he had made from the timid Cenacolo at Florence, while his transition from Peruginesque hatching to a full and free streak, and a bold handling, is particularly traceable in the Disputa, which Passavant justly characterises as surpassing every antecedent effort of pictorial art.
The death of Julius II. in 1513, eventually proved nowise detrimental to Raffaele's advancement; for the new Pope not only followed out those decorations which he found in progress at the Vatican, but soon made new calls upon their artist, whose labours during the remaining seven years of his short span appear almost beyond belief. Of the Stanze, ten new subjects were composed, and several of them in part executed by him in that time, besides the architecture and all the elaborate decoration of the Loggie, the finished cartoons for twelve or thirteen large tapestries, the decorations of the Farnesina, Bibbiena, Lante, Madama, and Magliana villas, the frescoes of Sta. Maria della Pace, the Chigi Chapel in Sta. Maria del Popolo, a variety of altar and cabinet pictures, including his Madonnas of San Sisto and del Pesce, the Sta. Cecilia, and, last but most glorious of all, the Transfiguration; besides numerous portraits, and many drawings for the burin of Marcantonio. Add to this a journey to Florence in 1514, his architectural designs for several palaces there and at Rome, a general superintendence of the antiquities in and around the Eternal City, and the principal charge of the building of St. Peter's, at a yearly salary of 300 scudi.
The necessary results of thus over-taxing mind and body was prejudicial to the quality of the works, and to the constitution of their author. His paintings, left in a great measure to pupils, often showed a hurried and inferior execution, ill compensated by the broader treatment which he was forced to adopt. The metropolitan fabric, itself an ample occupation for the highest genius and constant industry of one man, languished under inadequate superintendence. The delicate frame of Raffaele, exhausted by mental fatigue, was incapable of resisting the first attack of disease.
But brief and utterly imperfect as this sketch has hitherto been, we must now greatly curtail it, and pass by many of his most glorious undertakings, to touch upon one or two general views.
Alinari