PLATE IV.—LA BELLE JARDINIÈRE
(In the Louvre)
"La Belle Jardinière" is a magnificent example of Raphael's Florentine style, which came from his being influenced by Leonardo da Vinci when at Florence (see the triangular composition). The Virgin's mantle was probably finished by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio; other parts—the hands and the feet—are hardly finished; nevertheless it is one of the finest, most expressive, and touching Madonnas by the Master.
In 1502 Perugino went back to Florence, and Raphael probably joined Pinturicchio's staff of assistants, though Vasari's statement that he furnished the designs for the latter master's frescoes in the Piccolomini Library at Siena may be dismissed as a fable. During this time Raphael painted his first Madonna pictures, notably the "Conestabile Madonna" (now at St. Petersburg), which is based entirely on Perugino's "Virgin with the Pomegranate," and two panels at the Berlin Museum. The Milan "Sposalizio," in which the young master's personality already asserts itself through the very marked Ferrarese and Peruginesque influences, was painted in 1504 for the church of St. Francesco at Città di Castello. His early mastery in portraiture is illustrated by his portrait of Perugino at the Borghese Gallery, which is so firm in character and perfect in execution that it could pass for many years as the handiwork of Holbein.
Meanwhile Duke Guidobaldo had returned to Urbino after the death of his enemy, Pope Alexander VI., and thither Raphael proceeded in 1504. The little "St. George" at the Louvre is a memento of this short visit which terminated in October of the same year, when Raphael, armed with a letter of warmest recommendation from Guidobaldo's sister Giovanna della Rovere to the Gonfaloniere Pier Soderini, left his native town for Florence, then the centre of artistic life, astir with the rivalry between the giants Michelangelo and Lionardo da Vinci.
The young man must have been fairly bewildered at the multitude of new impressions that crowded upon him in the glorious city on the banks of the Arno, with its imposing palaces and churches, its seething life and its art so much more virile and monumental than the dreamy, almost effeminate art engendered by the soft balmy atmosphere of Umbria. How he must have revelled in the contemplation of Masaccio's noble frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel—the training school of generations of painters—which ten years later were echoed in his tapestry cartoons for the Sistine Chapel! How he must have stood in wonder and amazement before Michelangelo's "David," and have resolved forthwith to devote himself to a more intimate study of the human form and movement! The fascination exercised upon him by the genius of Lionardo found expression in some of the earliest fruits of Raphael's sojourn in Florence—the portraits at the Pitti Palace known as "Angelo Doni" and his wife Maddalena Strozzi, who, however, could not possibly have been the model for this reminiscence of Lionardo's "Mona Lisa," since it is known that she was baptized in 1489, whereas Raphael's portrait of 1504 represents a woman of ripe age.
In the workshop of the architect Baccio d'Agnolo, which was then a favourite social resort of the younger artists of Florence, the youth from Urbino met on terms of equality such masters as Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Antonio da Sangallo, Sansovino, and Fra Bartolommeo, who again had a considerable share in the formation of Raphael's style, as may be seen from the "Madonna di Sant'Antonio," now lent to the National Gallery by Mr. Pierpont Morgan who is said to have paid for it the enormous price of £100,000. This picture, and the "Ansidei Madonna," which was bought for the National Gallery from the Duke of Marlborough's collection for £70,000, were painted during a visit to Perugia towards the end of 1505—the former for the nuns of St. Antony of Padua, in Perugia, and the other for the Ansidei Chapel in the church of San Fiorenzo of the same city.
PLATE V.—THE MADONNA OF THE TOWER
(In the National Gallery, London)