RAPHAEL OF URBINO.
"Some critic once said, 'Show me any sentiment or feeling in any poet, ancient or modern, and I will show you the same thing either as well or better expressed in Shakespeare.' In the same manner one might say, 'Show me in any painter, ancient or modern, any especial beauty of form, expression, or sentiment, and in some picture, drawing, or painting after Raphael I will show you the same thing as well or better done, and that accomplished which others have only sought or attempted.'
"To complete our idea of this rare union of greatness and versatility as an artist with all that could grace and dignify the man, we must add such personal qualities as very seldom meet in the same individual—a bright, generous, genial, gentle spirit; the most attractive manners, the most winning modesty."
Thus writes Mrs. Jameson of the man of whom Vasari said, "When this noble artist died, well might Painting have departed also, for when he closed his eyes, she too was left, as it were, blind.... To him of a truth it is that we owe the possession of invention, coloring, and execution, brought alike, and altogether, to that point of perfection for which few could have dared to hope; nor has any man ever aspired to pass before him."
Raphael of Urbino was born at Colbordolo, a small town in the Duchy of Urbino, April 6, 1483. His father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter of considerable merit, and was possessed also of poetic ability, as he wrote an epic of two hundred and twenty-four pages, in honor of Federigo of Montefeltro, then Duke of Urbino. This duke was a valiant soldier, and a patron of art and literature, who for years kept twenty or thirty persons copying Greek and Latin manuscripts for his library.
The mother of Raphael, Magia, the daughter of Battista Ciarla, a merchant at Urbino, was a woman of unusual sweetness of disposition and beauty of character. Unfortunately she died when Raphael was eight years old. Her three other children died young.
These years must have been happy ones to the gentle, loving child. Their home was in the midst of the snowy peaks of the Apennines, looking towards the blue Adriatic. It is not strange that he became a worshipper of the beautiful. Nature soon grows to be an inspiring companion to those who love her. She warms the heart with her exquisite pictures of varied earth and sky; she caresses us with the glow of sunlight and the fragrance of flowers; she sings us to rest with the melody of the sea and the murmur of the trees and the brooks.
Giovanni Santi married for his second wife Bernardina, the daughter of the goldsmith, Pietro di Parte, a woman of strong character, but lacking the gentleness of Magia. Two years after this marriage he died, leaving Raphael doubly orphaned at eleven years of age. What prospect was there that this boy, without father or mother, without riches or distinguished family, would work his way to renown?
The will of Giovanni left the Santi home to Bernardina as long as she remained a widow, and the child to her care and that of his brother, a priest, Don Bartolomeo. The latter does not appear to have been a very saintly minister, for he and Bernardina quarrelled constantly over the property, quite forgetting the development of the boy left in their charge. Finally Magia's brother, Simone di Battista Ciarla, came to an understanding with the disputants, and arranged that the lad, who had worked somewhat in his father's studio, should be placed under some eminent painter.