RAFFAELLO Sanzio
Italian High Renaissance Painter, 1483-1520
Italian painter and architect. As a member of Perugino's workshop, he established his mastery by 17 and began receiving important commissions. In 1504 he moved to Florence, where he executed many of his famous Madonnas; his unity of composition and suppression of inessentials is evident in The Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1506). Though influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's chiaroscuro and sfumato, his figure types were his own creation, with round, gentle faces that reveal human sentiments raised to a sublime serenity. In 1508 he was summoned to Rome to decorate a suite of papal chambers in the Vatican. The frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura are probably his greatest work; the most famous, The School of Athens (1510 C 11), is a complex and magnificently ordered allegory of secular knowledge showing Greek philosophers in an architectural setting. The Madonnas he painted in Rome show him turning away from his earlier work's serenity to emphasize movement and grandeur, partly under Michelangelo's High Renaissance influence. The Sistine Madonna (1513) shows the richness of colour and new boldness of compositional invention typical of his Roman period. He became the most important portraitist in Rome, designed 10 large tapestries to hang in the Sistine Chapel, designed a church and a chapel, assumed the direction of work on St. Peter's Basilica at the death of Donato Bramante,
ID: 63800 The Mass at Bolsena 1512 Fresco Stanza di Eliodoro, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican Julius II had founded the Swiss Guard as a military elite in May 1510, and granted them the distinction of their own costume. The Guard had played a vital role in a victory over French forces, who had occupied parts of the Papal State. The pope was probably bestowing an honour on them for that loyal service by letting Raphael portray some of their important representatives in the fresco, thus giving them pride of place in his audience chamber.Artist:RAFFAELLO Sanzio Title: The Mass at Bolsena (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , Italian - - painting : religious
