The two-part episode The Incident presents two stories in parallel: a science-fiction adventure involving time-travel, electro-magnetism, and a mad scientist hoping to change things with a hydrogen bomb; and a fantasy myth involving mortals enslaved by ancient demigods, trying to change things with a knife and sacrificial fire. (In keeping with the disclaimer introduced earlier, it must be noted that ‘science’ and ‘fantasy’ are terms loosely applied, and that perhaps even the Jacob story might craft a more plausible scientific explanation than the Incident itself.) This work of fiction exists somewhere at the intersection of drama, sci-fi, and fantasy, but wholly within the category of Mythology. The episode’s first images evoke the dawn of human culture, the harnessed power of fire, shelters made of rock, hand-spun clothing and sandals, and primitive tools to gather fish from the ocean. After mankind adapted the necessary technology to survive, his mind began to expand to other pursuits, darkening his bare walls to produce painted images, carving majestic statues into rock, weaving decorative tapestries dyed different colors, telling stories through language, and even building ships to explore the seas (and planes to conquer the skies). Although Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey still holds the record for the longest flash-forward in cinema history, the centuries-long transition after the opening scene achieves a similar narrative effect. Even though man has evolved from taming the Promethean fire to building Edison’s light bulb to unleashing the power of the atom, our civilization is still in its infancy. Human beings themselves have not matured at the same rate as our technological progress. “They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.” The same petty jealousies that motivated the biblical rivalry of Jacob and Esau, also inform our nuclear-age warfare. A doctor can now perform once-unthinkable paralysis-saving surgery on your spine, but can that same doctor ever fix his own backbone when dealing with his father? Even our artwork, after generations of progress from cave paintings to wireless transmission of digital media, have also taken us from Homer to New Kids on the Block.

  

LOCKE: Years later a visiting prince came into Michelangelo's studio and found the master staring at a single 18 foot block of marble. Then he knew that the rumors were true -- that Michelangelo had come in everyday for the last four months, stared at the marble, and gone home for his supper. So the prince asked the obvious -- what are you doing? And Michelangelo turned around and looked at him, and whispered, sto lavorando, I'm working. Three years later that block of marble was the statue of David.

 

Two special artifacts from this classic opening scene, which are revisited at the ending of the episode, deserve special attention. The first is Jacob’s tapestry. The meticulously hand-crafted decoration initially appears in incomplete form. He has emblazoned the top section of the tapestry with ancient Greek lettering, a phrase from Homer’s Odyssey: “May the Gods grant thee all that thy heart desires”. Under those letters, the Egyptian symbol of the Eye of Horus, a symbol of divine power, occupies the center, between two massive wings. When Ben arrives at the statue centuries later, Jacob’s masterpiece is complete. Arms stretch down from the eye, towards nine human figures, while two kings observe from both sides. The image offers a visual representation of Jacob’s long-term plan, to give each piece ‘a little push’ into place for his endgame. Presumably, those nine individuals correspond to Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, Ilana, Locke, Sun, Jin, Jack, and Hurley (although Ben might be the final person, as Ben received Jacob’s touch rather than Ilana). Much like the sequence of literal and figurative long cons that preceded this one, the tapestry doubles as a metaphor for the show’s writing process. The gods of this particular story, writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, strung the audience along for several years, slowly revealing pieces, painting each character with care, until it was time to unveil this man behind the curtain. Of course, they understood that the journey was more important than the final destination. As Jacob later confesses: “It takes a very long time when you're making the thread, but, uh... I suppose that's the point, isn't it?”.

   

Allusions to outside mythology, of course, occur quite frequently on Lost. For every direct reference that the show makes, there are a dozen other meaningful comparisons to be made, some intentional (such as Apollo the son of Zeus, or Everything That Rises Must Converge) but many others are merely fortuitous. Minds working independently across the globe tend to converge on the same core ideas or mythemes. Mythology scholars have produced a number of different theories to explain why authors from different cultures, without any direct contact, produce legends with such striking similarities. Each theory of mythology necessary rests on a simplification and generalization, more valid for some works than for others. In my assessment, the work of French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss offers the deepest insight into the objectives of Lost-style myth-making. Lévi-Strauss posited that human beings organize information primarily through binary oppositions (pairs like faith-empiricism, freedom-determinism). The underlying storytelling purpose of any myth is to unify those irreconcilable opposites, or at least create the illusion that the conflict has been resolved. Through the clash of thesis and antithesis, we can arrive at a synthesis. The commonly-cited analysis of the tragedy of Oedipus Rex offers a useful example: Sophocles revealed the consequences for a son showing not nearly enough affection for one parent, by killing his father; and far too much affection for the other parent, by marrying his mother. The great Lost myth revolves around the mirroring psyches of its pair of heroes, Jack Shephard and John Locke, one child who received far too much parenting (with Christian pushing his adult son around the clock) and another child who received far too little parenting (with Cooper pushing his adult son out of the eight-story window). The endless dichotomies of Lost are indeed false ones, and no one who chooses one extreme side, can ever be fully correct.

  

LOCKE: Backgammon is the oldest game in the world. Archeologists found sets when they excavated the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia. Five thousand years old. That's older than Jesus Christ.

WALT: Did they have dice and stuff?

LOCKE: [nods] But theirs weren't made of plastic. Their dice were made of bones.

WALT: Cool.

LOCKE: Two players. Two sides. One is light … one is dark.

 

The second key artifact is Jacob’s home, the Statue itself. As confirmed through outside sources (although hardly apparent from the actual episode), the Statue represents the hippopotamus-headed Egyptian fertility goddess Tawaret. (The interior chamber also includes a painting of the Egyptian deity Isis, another goddess similarly associated with protection, birth, and motherhood.) Before this revelation, many people, including myself, predicted incorrectly that the Statue would depict Anubis, the jackal-faced god of death, judgment, and the underworld. Images of Anubis last appeared during Season Five's Dead is Dead, on the tunnel walls where Linus confronted the black Smoke, also known by its Greek mythological moniker, Cerberus. The overall implication here is that the dividing lines have been drawn, with Jacob’s light side linked to Life, with the Man in Black associated with Death. In flashback, Jacob’s touch breathes life in Locke’s fallen body, while his nemesis apparently has been manipulating corpses for years to help him commit a murder.

  

Among the ancient secrets revealed in this episode, Ricardus answers Ilana’s ongoing riddle “What lies in the shadow of the Statue?” with the Latin phrase: ille qui nos omnes servabit. The standard translation apparently characterizes Jacob as a messiah figure: the one who will save us all. Despite all preliminary indications, it would be a premature mistake to equate the light-dark imagery with a good-evil metaphor. As Frank Lapidus wisely remarks: “In my experience, the people who go out of their way to tell you that the good guys are the bad guys.” The basic conclusions are undisputed: Jacob wants to keep bringing people to the Island to bring about an Ending, while the Man in Black wants to kill Jacob and keep the Island isolated. (The physical acting of the two rivals even conveys their dueling outlooks, with Mark Pellegrino relaxing as he scans the horizon, but with Titus Welliver squinting uncomfortably in the reflected sunlight.) Conceivably, Jacob’s Ending, his desire for change, could include the death of all mankind, to make way for the birth of a new progressive era. A phrase on the bottom of his tapestry offers a foreboding hint of Jacob’s final solution to end human corruption: “Only the dead have seen the end of war”. Keep in mind, the first on-screen action of Jacob, the great fisher of men, was to gather life from the ocean, rip its guts out, and then devour it.

  

(Here is another fun etymological fact for all of the Latin lovers out there. Early in the episode, Bram and Ilana share a cryptic exchange about whether Frank might be a Candidate for their side, a term that undoubtedly will reappear in Season Six scripts. The Latin adjective candidatus literally means “dressed in white,” and Mr. Lapidus clearly fits that bill. The word developed its English meaning from the white gowns worn by Romans seeking senatorial election. The word also shares a common origin with the adjective candidus which could be used for its literal meaning of “white,” or in a more figurative sense as “clear”, “candid”, or in other words “Frank.”)

  

MIKHAIL: Ha! Don’t waste your time. For ten years I have tried to defeat that game. But it was programmed by three grand masters. And it cheats.

LOCKE: Hmm. Well, I’ve played a lot of computers and I’m pretty sure they don’t know how to cheat. That’s what makes being human so distinctly wonderful.

 

For the first time, The Incident allows the viewer to rise up from a ground-level view of the game pieces on earth, to see the chess board from the player’s perspective in the sky. The story begins with the Man in White and the Man in Black trapped in an eternal stalemate. The fisherman Jacob gathers people from the seas, and then his enemy the hunter watches them destroy each other. Like the layman’s definition of insanity, Jacob repeats the same action over and over, while expecting a different result, faithful that one day the humans will change their nature, and the outcome. As Jacob points out, though, time is on his side: only one counterexample is necessary to disprove a negative. The rules of the game favor an endless cycle of perfectly symmetrical violence, until one of the players can find a way to change, break, or at least bend the rules. The Man in Black found the loophole in the rules that would allow him to kill Jacob. Evidently, he needed to impersonate Locke (and a number of other departed souls along the way) in order to persuade Ben, the leader of the Others, to choose to murder Jacob. At the same time, Jacob knew that his opponent would exploit the technicality eventually. In response, Jacob found his own way to cheat the rules: he brought a handful of special individuals to the Island, so that they could erase the events that lead to his death. To borrow a key phrase from Lost creator J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek opus: “Going back in time, changing history ... that's cheating.” Both master plans required a tremendous degree of faith in mankind: Jacob placed his confidence in the better angels of our nature, the ability of separate individuals to collaborate on one final goal; the Man in Black went all-in gambling on the inherent weakness of Locke, the corruption of Ben, and the mindlessness of his followers.

  

Their debate about whether mankind can change its nature arrives alongside the time-travel corollary question of whether human beings can alter their future. The “we’re the variables” framework presented in Season Five - note the emphasis on the plural - suggests that one person acting alone cannot alter history. Due to our natural tendency to oppose each other, the reactions of some other person will negate that action. Season Five's test case demonstrated the principle, as Kate's efforts to save little Benjamin negated Sayid's attempts to destroy him. The light will drive away the darkness, and vice-versa. However, if enough individuals combine in an effort to alter history, then the magnetism of their aggregate positive charge can overcome the negative pull. When the dark energy approaches the Swan (Jack, Sayid, Jin, and Hurley - all shown as adults in flashback), the forces of light gather to stop them (James, Juliet, and Kate – each one appearing as a child). The ensuing argument between echoes the central time-travel issue of Season Five: James asserts “What’s done is done,” and Jack responds “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.” The resulting boxing match between the Black-Jack and Light-LaFleur depicts the larger war between the dueling demigods in microcosm: the two men are evenly matched when trading punches, so James exploits a few holes in Jack’s rulebook. In the end, though, one side prevails with nothing more than a little push to tip the scales. Juliet’s paradoxical, circular logic, a freely-willed decision grounded on her concept of predestination, resolves the conflict into its synthesis.

   

BERNARD: You realize we're the only two married guys on the island?

[He shows his ring]

BERNARD: Married?

JIN: Married.

BERNARD: Yeah, well, no, not to each other. No. (laughing) You got it. It's not easy, is it? Oh, I mean, it's--it's wonderful, but... let's face it, every decision that you make takes twice as long. 'Cause you always gotta talk them into it.

 

The episode’s black-and-white motif takes on a completely different meaning in the context of the Island’s two married couples. Part One includes the long-awaited return of Rose and Bernard, a couple whose bond transcends not only the color barrier between black and white, but also the perhaps deeper divide between a woman of faith and a man of science. The retired couple sets the example that the children refuse to follow, to lay down their differences and evolve into peaceful harmony. Subsequent flashbacks also reunite our other married couple, the wedding between Sun in her white dress and Jin in his black tuxedo. Western observers often mistakenly refer to the prominent Eastern symbols of yin and yang, as images of the struggle between good and evil. On the contrary, the black-and-white emblem common from Chinese philosophy (also incorporated into the flag of South Korea) represents duality rather than polarity. The dark and the light, the male and the female, instead of opposing each other become unified halves of a stronger whole. Jin provides another useful image: “We will never be apart, because being apart would be like the sky being apart from the earth.” Their wedding rings reinforce the idea of interconnectedness between the two halves of the same story, an unbreakable bond despite decades of separation. Sun’s later discovery of Charlie’s Driveshaft ring suggests a similar connection between the living and the dead, the past and the future. On a more depressing note, this episode also includes a third married couple, with the tragedy of Sayid and Nadia. While Sayid bleeds to death from his gunshot wound on the island, he suffers a deeper wound in flashback, his own sky being ripped away from his earth.

   

In what is either a sheer accident, or the product of intelligent design, the dark and light phenomenon even extends into the ongoing turmoil between the episode’s four romantic leads. On the physical level, James and Juliet share the same light-haired, lighter-eyed look of Jacob, while Jack and Kate share the same dark-haired, darker-eyed look of his nemesis. As Radzinsky might attest, basic electromagnetism holds that like charges repel and opposite charges attract. Even heading into the final season, the love quadrangle has never settled into a stable equilibrium, due to a peculiar mix of shared-physical-traits-with-opposite-personality-traits and vice versa. If you wanted a second opinion from Dr. Freud, then he could tell you a thing or too about Ms. Austen and Mrs. Shephard, Ms. Burke and Mrs. Ford. (Speaking of Freud, what can a psychoanalyst say about writers who changed temporarily the name of one of its leads from the revenge-driven Sawyer to flower-sniffing LaFleur. The Flower, as it translates from French to English, is traditionally associated with femininity, fertility, and even serves a common symbol for a certain part of the female anatomy. Fortunately, The Incident confirms that, “there ain’t no more LaFleur,” and with it the nominal castration of James Ford comes to an end.) The Incident focuses much of its creative energy on manufacturing motivations for each of the four lovers, to join forces to detonate Jughead, mostly at the expense of the supporting players. For each of these four characters, Lindelof and Cuse go too far in spelling out the answers to the audience in childish black-and-white terms, when shades of adult gray would have sufficed.

  

KATE: So, do you believe it?

JACK: Believe what?

KATE: That everything's going to be okay?

JACK: Yeah, I do.

KATE: Kind of unlike you -- the whole glass half-full thing.

JACK: There's a glass?

 

The childish immaturity of adults often comes across in a negative light, but child-like innocence can also be seen as a positive trait. Hurley, more than any other character, has been blessed (or, depending on your perspective, cursed) with the heart of a child. The adult Hugo not only enjoys a nice cherry Fruit Rollup on his ride home from jail, but he is thoughtful enough to offer to share it with a stranger. Just as any girl Juliet’s age will blame her own actions for her parents’ failed marriage, Hurley similarly internalizes the misfortunes of others as his own personal shortcoming. Hurley’s conversation with Jacob carries the same tune as any kid in need of parental guidance. Jacob’s words add another classic binary opposition to this tapestry of black and white: optimism and pessimism. There are always two ways to look at any situation. Even the darkest curse might be viewed as a brilliant blessing in disguise. As a point of caution, though, the converse of that principle also holds some merit. Throughout this story, Jack plays the unlikely role of a zealous optimist. Absolutely confident in the plan’s improbable success, he illuminates all of the wonderful merits of the revised timeline (Sayid’s life will be saved, Jin will get reunite with Sun, Claire will have the chance to keep Aaron, etc.). Foolish optimism can be a more dangerous force than cautious pessimism. His alternate future easily could result in an abyss of darkness, rather than a beacon of sunshine.

  

After so many rays of hope, the story of John Locke now ends in the gloomiest depths of tragedy. Frank quotes the same eternal question that links together Through the Looking Glass with There’s No Place Like Home: “What’s in the box?”. Three years later, the answer remains the same: Locke’s rotting corpse. John's life ended with him alone, miserable, and a failure. He was a puppet on strings, pulled by Cooper, by Ben, and by the Man in Black, and then discarded as a piece of trash, like on the day he was born. In a way, the entity now occupying Locke’s body has been fulfilling John Locke’s lifelong dreams. Locke always wanted to become a decisive leader, a man strong enough stand up to the Coopers and Linuses and Jacobs of the world. This master pulling the strings is unburdened by John’s emotional scars, his neediness, his self-doubt, even his morality. John’s ambitions of divinity could not be reconciled with his identity as a mortal, so one of those two needed to die. Even so, Locke’s tragic curse can be viewed as a blessing of martyrdom. Seemingly, Locke’s last chance for redemption hinges upon the success of Shephard’s mission to erase history. His phony resurrection in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham could be explained only by a cheap deus ex machina. The alternative option, resuming his life in a wheelchair at LAX, would be the product of his own leadership, the effect of mentoring Jack into a true believer. Jack drops the warhead onto the Swan site, like a kid tossing a coin into a wishing well, with the hope that when the magic box opens again, whatever he imagines will come true.

   

LOCKE: You have to do it.

JACK: You do it yourself, John.

LOCKE: No, you saw the film, Jack. This is a two person job, at least. […] I can't do this alone, Jack. I don't want to. It's a leap of faith, Jack.

 

Jack’s mad quest to detonate the bomb and prevent the Incident should remind the audience of Locke’s equally mad quest to end the 108-minute cycle of button-pushing once and for all. The content of Season Two’s Live Together, Die Alone resembles The Incident in other ways as well, a two-hour flashback episode to introduce a new character, with a timer ticking down to a scheduled event, which ends with one last heroic gesture to "make it all go away" in a flash of light. (Also, it never hurts to add liberal doses of the Great Radzinsky into your script.) These two episodes pull their characters violently towards the same magnetic focal point, with metal projectiles flying through the air. In each case, the man of faith puts his blind beliefs to an empirical test, to find a yes-or-no, black-and-white scientific question. Locke told us: “I’m more sure about this than anything in my entire life,” and he was wrong. For Jack, the words are: “Nothing... nothing in my life has ever felt so right.” (These statements also reveal a great deal about the degree of confidence the two men felt in themselves over the years.) The destinies of these two great men have been intertwined quite beautifully. Indeed, the outcome of one question hinges upon the answer to the other. If Jack had succeeded in destroying the energy, then Locke would have been correct as the timer ticked down to zero. On the other hand, if the Button truly served no purpose, then Oceanic 815 would have crashed regardless of any Incident, and Jack’s plan would have no effect on the timeline. I cannot help but admire their pure strength of will required to risk everything, seemingly beyond good and evil, beyond fate and free will.

  

Lost’s famous Live Together, Die Alone dichotomy reappears in another form, in the story of Juliet. When Jack first spoke those words in Season One’s White Rabbit, he phrased it as an either-or choice: “if we can’t live together, then we’re going to die alone.” When Juliet references the mantra in The Incident, she makes a crucial misstatement, “Live together and die alone” (at least, according to the closed-captions on my DVD.) A few minutes later, Juliet indeed does die alone, in the hope that everyone else might live again, together at LAX. The method of her death, proved to be an inspired creative choice. James, who tried desperately to lift John from the well in This Place is Death, once again found himself on the losing end of a tug-of-war with the grim reaper. Despite moving on from the death of his parents to build a new life, he finds himself in the same place as his childhood self in Tennessee, losing the woman he loves most in the world. The magnetically-charged chains, pulling her down into the gaping hole, offers a more scientific counterpart to the fantasy-inspired image of the Smoke Monster’s black hand of Death. Chains commonly serve as a symbol of restraint, imprisonment, inevitability, the antithesis of human liberty. In the famous words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Pulled underground against her will, Juliet makes one last free choice, to erase countless freely-willed decisions of others. She achieves her destiny by destroying the chain of events that caused her to fulfill that destiny.

  

When the final white screen with black letters appears for the first time, after five years of white-on-black writing, the implication is clear: the Lost universe as we know it has inverted itself. The central binary dilemma of Season Five hangs in the balance with the flash of light. Two players, two sides. Did the events of the Season-Five-ending Incident prevent the Season One-opening Pilot’s crash of Oceanic 815? Or did the characters cause the very future they were trying to prevent? Both options offer a mix of positives and negatives. A brand new timeline would offer fresh storytelling opportunities, and a chance to revisit old friends long gone. On the other hand, the explosion would also incinerate the entire five-season hand-crafted tapestry of the Island story. The entire post-1977 universe, including the 2007 storyline of the Incident, would amount to nothing more than a dream. Preserving the old timeline would re-affirm the show’s fundamental rules for meaningful storytelling stakes: dead is dead; whatever happened, happened. With that solution, the entire time-travel story arc that lead to this finale event, and all those post-cliffhanger months of anticipation, would become meaningless. (Logistically, I don’t think either solution even makes much logical sense.) Perhaps the fatal flaw of this debate is that we view it as a debate. As Juliet did, maybe we should simple replace the word ‘OR’ with the word ‘AND’. There can be two universes, one in which Jacob succeeds, and one in which the Man in Black succeeds. Instead of conflict, we can find harmony. As the men who first painted on cave walls understood, one color is not enough. A world of pure white and a world of pure black would be indistinguishable from chaos. But, when you combine the dark and the light in some kind of balance, then any work of art becomes possible.

       

103,323 items / 673,520 views

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism

 

Sufism (Arabic: تصوّف‎) taṣawwuf,(Persian: صوفی گری) also spelled as tasavvuf and tasavvof according to the Persian pronunciation, is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam.[1][2][3] A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ṣūfī (صُوفِيّ), though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals of the Sufi tradition. Another name used for the Sufi seeker is Dervish.

 

Classical Sufi scholars have defined Sufism as "a science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God."[4] Alternatively, in the words of the renowned Darqawi Sufi teacher Ahmad ibn Ajiba, "a science through which one can know how to travel into the presence of the Divine, purify one’s inner self from filth, and beautify it with a variety of praiseworthy traits."[5]

 

hile all Muslims believe that they are on the pathway to God and will become close to God in Paradise — after death and after the "Final Judgment" — Sufis also believe that it is possible to draw closer to God and to more fully embrace the Divine Presence in this life.[14] The chief aim of all Sufis is to seek the pleasing of God by working to restore within themselves the primordial state of fitra,[15] described in the Qur'an. In this state nothing one does defies God, and all is undertaken by the single motivation of love of God.Template:Fact=November 2009 A secondary consequence of this is that the seeker may be led to abandon all notions of dualism or multiplicity, including a conception of an individual self, and to realize the Divine Unity.Template:Fact=November 2009

 

Thus Sufism has been characterized[by whom?] as the science of the states of the lower self (the ego), and the way of purifying this lower self of its reprehensible traits, while adorning it instead with what is praiseworthy, whether or not this process of cleansing and purifying the heart is in time rewarded by esoteric knowledge of God. This can be conceived in terms of two basic types of law (fiqh), an outer law concerned with actions, and an inner law concerned with the human heart.[citation needed] The outer law consists of rules pertaining to worship, transactions, marriage, judicial rulings, and criminal law — what is often referred to, a bit too broadly, as shariah. The inner law of Sufism consists of rules about repentance from sin, the purging of contemptible qualities and evil traits of character, and adornment with virtues and good character.[16]

 

To enter the way of Sufism, the seeker begins by finding a teacher, as the connection to the teacher is considered necessary for the growth of the pupil. The teacher, to be genuine, must have received the authorization to teach (ijazah) of another Master of the Way, in an unbroken succession (silsilah) leading back to Sufism's origin with Muhammad. It is the transmission of the divine light from the teacher's heart to the heart of the student, rather than of worldly knowledge transmitted from mouth to ear, that allows the adept to progress. In addition, the genuine teacher will be utterly strict in his adherence to the Divine Law.[17]

 

Scholars and adherents of Sufism are unanimous in agreeing that Sufism cannot be learned through books.[dubious – discuss] To reach the highest levels of success in Sufism typically requires that the disciple live with and serve the teacher for many, many years.[citation needed] For instance, Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari, considered founder of the Naqshbandi Order, served his first teacher, Sayyid Muhammad Baba As-Samasi, for 20 years, until as-Samasi died. He subsequently served several other teachers for lengthy periods of time. The extreme arduousness of his spiritual preparation is illustrated by his service, as directed by his teacher, to the weak and needy members of his community in a state of complete humility and tolerance for many years. When he believed this mission to be concluded, his teacher next directed him to care for animals, curing their sicknesses, cleaning their wounds, and assisting them in finding provision. After many years of this he was next instructed to spend many years in the care of dogs in a state of humility, and to ask them for support.[18]

 

As a further example, the prospective adherent of the Mevlevi Order would have been ordered to serve in the kitchens of a hospice for the poor for 1,001 days prior to being accepted for spiritual instruction, and a further 1,001 days in solitary retreat as a precondition of completing that instruction.[19]

 

Some teachers, especially when addressing more general audiences, or mixed groups of Muslims and non-Muslims, make extensive use of parable, allegory, and metaphor.[20] Although approaches to teaching vary among different Sufi orders, Sufism as a whole is primarily concerned with direct personal experience, and as such has sometimes been compared to other, non-Islamic forms of mysticism (e.g., as in the books of Seyyed Hossein Nasr).

 

Sufism, which is a general term for Muslim mysticism, sprang up largely in reaction against the worldliness which infected Islam when its leaders became the powerful and wealthy rulers of multitudes of people and were influenced by foreign cultures. Harun al-Rashid, eating off gold and silver, toying with a harem of scented beauties, surrounded by an impenetrable retinue of officials, eunuchs and slaves, was a far cry from the stern simplicity of an Umar, who lived in the modest house, wore patched clothes and could be approached by any of his followers.[21][neutrality disputed]

 

The typical early Sufi lived in a cell of a mosque and taught a small band of disciples. The extent to which Sufism was influenced by Buddhist and Hindu mysticism, and by the example of Christian hermits and monks, is disputed, but self-discipline and concentration on God quickly led to the belief that by quelling the self and through loving ardour for God it was possible to maintain a union with the divine in which the human self melted away.[21]

 

During the primary stages of Sufism, Sufis were characterised by their particular attachment to dhikr "remembrance [of God]" and asceticism. Sufism arose among a number of Muslims as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 CE[6]). The Sufi movement has spanned several continents and cultures over a millennium, at first expressed through Arabic, then through Persian, Turkish and a dozen other languages.[7] ṭuruq "Orders", which are either Sunnī or Shī‘ī in doctrine, mostly trace their origins from the Islamic Prophet Muhammad through his cousin ‘Alī, with the notable exception of the Naqshbandi who trace their origins through the first Caliph, Abu Bakr.[8]

 

According to Idries Shah, the Sufi philosophy is universal in nature, its roots predating the arising of Islam and the other modern-day religions; likewise, some Muslims[who?] feel that Sufism is outside the sphere of Islam,[1][9][10] although generally scholars of Islam contend that it is simply the name for the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam.[1]

 

The lexical root of Sufi is variously traced to صُوف ṣūf "wool", referring either to the simple cloaks the early Muslim ascetics wore, or possibly to صَفا ṣafā "purity". The two were combined by al-Rudhabari who said, "The Sufi is the one who wears wool on top of purity."[11] The wool cloaks were sometimes a designation of their initiation into the Sufi order. The early Sufi orders considered the wearing of this coat an imitation of Jesus. Sufism is known as "Islamic Mysticism," in which Muslims seek to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God.[12] Mysticism is defined as the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality, and the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight).[13]

 

Others[who?] suggest the origin of the word ṣufi is from Aṣhab aṣ-ṣuffa "Companions of the Porch", who were a group of impoverished Muslims during the time of Muhammad who spent much of their time on the veranda of Al-Masjid al-Nabawi, devoted to prayer and eager to memorize each new increment of the Qur'an as it was revealed. Yet another etymology, advanced by the 10th century Persian historian Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī is that the word is linked with Greek word sophia "wisdom".

 

Bayazid Tayfur al-Bistami

 

Bayazid is considered to be "of the six bright stars in the firmament of the Prophet (sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam)",[22] and a link in the Golden Chain of the Naqshibandi Tariqah. Bayazid al-Bistami was the first one to spread the reality of Annihilation (Fana'), whereby the Mystic becomes fully absorbed to the point of becoming unaware of himself or the objects around him. Every existing thing seems to vanish, and he feels free of every barrier that could stand in the way of his viewing the Remembered One. In one of these states, Bayazid cried out: "Praise to Me, for My greatest Glory!" Bistami's belief in the Unity of all religions became apparent when asked the question: "How does Islam view other religions?" His reply was "All are vehicles and a path to God's Divine Presence." From a young age, he left his mother stating to her that he could not serve Allah and his mother at the same time.[23]

[edit] Ibn Arabi

 

Muhyiddin Muhammad b. 'Ali [Ibn 'Arabi][1] (or Ibn al-'Arabi) is considered to be one of the most important Sufi masters, although he never founded any order (tariqa). His writings, especially al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya and Fusus al-hikam, have been studied within all the Sufi orders as the clearest expression of tawhid (Divine Unity), though because of their recondite nature they were often only given to initiates. Later those who followed his teaching became known as the school of wahdat al-wujud (the Oneness of Being). He himself considered his writings to have been divinely inspired. As he expressed the Way to one of his close disciples, his legacy is that 'you should never ever abandon your servanthood ('ubudiyya), and that there may never be in your soul a longing for any existing thing'[24]. The following quotations give a flavour of his teaching: 'Whoever witnesses without ceasing what he was created for, in both this world and the next, is the Perfect Servant, the intended goal of the cosmos, the deputy of the whole cosmos'[25]. 'The self is an ocean without a shore. There is no end to the contemplation of it in this world or the next'[26]. 'God seeks from you your heart and gives to you all that you are. So purify and cleanse it [the heart] through presence, wakefulness and reverential fear'[27].

[edit] Junayd

 

Junayd al-Baghdadi (830-910 AD) was one of the great early Sufis and is a central figure in the golden chain of many Sufi orders. He laid the groundwork for sober mysticism in contrast to that of God-intoxicated Sufis like al-Hallaj, Bayazid Bastami and Abusaeid Abolkheir. In the process of trial* of al-Hallaj, his former disciple, Caliph of the time demanded his fatwa and he issued this fatwa: "From the outward appearance he is to die and we judge according to the outward appearance and God knows better". He is referred to by the Sufis as Sayyid-ut Taifa i.e. the leader of the group. He lived and died in the city of Baghdad.

 

* The utterances of Arabic: أنا الحق‎ Anā l-Ḥaqq "I am The Truth," by Mansur Al-Hallaj led to a long trial, and his subsequent imprisonment for 11 years in a Baghdad prison. He was tortured and publicly crucified on March 26, 922.

 

[edit] Mansur al-Hallaj

 

Mansur al-Hallaj is renowned for his claim "Ana-l-Haq" (I am the Truth), for which he was executed for apostasy. He is still revered by Sufis for his forthrightness. It is also said that during his prayers, he would say "O Lord! You are the guide of those who are passing through the Valley of Bewilderment. If I am a heretic, enlarge my heresy." [28]

[edit] History of Sufism

Main article: History of Sufism

[edit] Origins

 

In its early stages of development Sufism effectively referred to nothing more than the internalization of Islam.[29] According to one perspective, it is directly from the Qur’an, constantly recited, meditated, and experienced, that Sufism proceeded, in its origin and its development.[30] Others have held that Sufism is the strict emulation of the way of Muhammad, through which the heart's connection to the Divine is strengthened.[31]

 

From the traditional Sufi point of view, the esoteric teachings of Sufism were transmitted from Muhammad to those who had the capacity to acquire the direct experiential gnosis of God, which was passed on from teacher to student through the centuries. Some of this transmission is summarized in texts, but most is not. Important contributions in writing are attributed to Uwais al-Qarni, Harrm bin Hian, Hasan Basri and Sayid ibn al-Mussib, who are regarded as the first Sufis in the earliest generations of Islam. Harith al-Muhasibi was the first one to write about moral psychology. Rabia Basri was a Sufi known for her love and passion for God, expressed through her poetry. Bayazid Bastami was among the first theorists of Sufism; he concerned himself with fanā and baqā, the state of annihilating the self in the presence of the divine, accompanied by clarity concerning worldly phenomena derived from that perspective.[32]

 

Sufism had a long history already before the subsequent institutionalization of Sufi teachings into devotional orders (tarîqât) in the early Middle Ages.[33] Almost all extant Sufi orders trace their chains of transmission (silsila) back to Muhammad via his cousin and son-in-law Ali. The Naqshbandi order is a notable exception to this rule, as it traces the origin of its teachings from Muhammad to the first Islamic Caliph Abu Bakr.[8]

 

Different devotional styles and traditions developed over time, reflecting the perspectives of different masters and the accumulated cultural wisdom of the orders. Typically all of these concerned themselves with the understanding of subtle knowledge (gnosis), education of the heart to purify it of baser instincts, the love of God, and approaching God through a well-described hierarchy of enduring spiritual stations (maqâmât) and more transient spiritual states (ahwâl).

  

Towards the end of the first millennium CE, a number of manuals began to be written summarizing the doctrines of Sufism and describing some typical Sufi practices. Two of the most famous of these are now available in English translation: the Kashf al-Mahjûb of Hujwiri, and the Risâla of Qushayri.[34]

 

Two of Imam Al Ghazali's greatest treatises, the "Revival of Religious Sciences" and the "Alchemy of Happiness," argued that Sufism originated from the Qur'an and was thus compatible with mainstream Islamic thought, and did not in any way contradict Islamic Law — being instead necessary to its complete fulfillment. This became the mainstream position among Islamic scholars for centuries, challenged only recently on the basis of selective use of a limited body of texts. Ongoing efforts by both traditionally-trained Muslim scholars and Western academics are making Imam Al-Ghazali's works available in English translation for the first time,[35] allowing readers to judge for themselves the compatibility between Islamic Law and Sufi doctrine.

  

The spread of Sufism has been considered a definitive factor in the spread of Islam, and in the creation of integrally Islamic cultures, especially in Africa[36] and Asia. Recent academic work on these topics has focused on the role of Sufism in creating and propagating the culture of the Ottoman world,[37] and in resisting European imperialism in Africa and South Asia.[38]

 

Between the 13th and 16th centuries CE, Sufism produced a flourishing intellectual culture throughout the Islamic world, a sort of "Golden Age" whose physical artifacts are still present. In many places, a lodge (known variously as a zaouia, khanqah, or tekke) would be endowed through a pious foundation in perpetuity (waqf) to provide a gathering place for Sufi adepts, as well as lodging for itinerant seekers of knowledge. The same system of endowments could also be used to pay for a complex of buildings, such as that surrounding the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, including a lodge for Sufi seekers, a hospice with kitchens where these seekers could serve the poor and/or complete a period of initiation, a library, and other structures. No important domain in the civilization of Islam remained unaffected by Sufism in this period.[39]

[edit] Contemporary Sufism

 

Sufism suffered many setbacks in the modern era, particularly (though not exclusively) at the hands of European imperialists in the colonized nations of Asia and Africa. The life of the Algerian Sufi master Emir Abd al-Qadir is instructive in this regard.[40] Notable as well are the lives of Amadou Bamba and Hajj Umar Tall in sub-Saharan Africa, and Sheikh Mansur Ushurma and Imam Shamilin the Caucasus region. In the twentieth century some more modernist Muslims have called Sufism a superstitious religion that holds back Islamic achievement in the fields of science and technology. [41]

 

In spite of this recent history of official repression, there remain many places in the world with vital Sufi traditions. Sufism is popular in such African countries as Senegal, where it is seen as a mystical expression of Islam.[42] Mbacke suggests that one reason Sufism has taken hold in Senegal is because it can accommodate local beliefs and customs, which tend toward the mystical.[43]

 

In South Asia, four major Sufi orders persist, namely the Chishti Order, the Qadiriyyah, the Naqshbandiyya, and the Suhrawardiyya. The Barelwis and Deobandis are significant Islamic movements in this region whose followers often belong to one of these orders.[44]

 

For a more complete summary of currently active groups and teachers, readers are referred to links in the site of Dr. Alan Godlas of the University of Georgia.[45][46]

 

A number of Westerners have embarked with varying degrees of success on the path of Sufism. One of the first to return to Europe as an official representative of a Sufi path, and with the specific purpose to spread Sufism in Western Europe, was the Swedish-born wandering Sufi Abd al-Hadi Aqhili (also known as Ivan Aguéli). The ideas propagated by such spiritualists may or may not conform to the tenets of Sufism as understood by orthodox Muslims, as for instance with G. I. Gurdjieff and Shawni. On the other hand, American- and British-born teachers such as Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Hamza Yusuf, and Abdal Hakim Murad have been instrumental in spreading messages that conform fully with the normative tenets of Islam.

 

Other noteworthy Sufi teachers who have been active in the West in recent years include Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Nader Angha, Inayat Khan, Nazim al-Qubrusi, Javad Nurbakhsh, Bulent Rauf[2]and Muzaffer Ozak.

[edit] Theoretical perspectives in Sufism

 

Traditional Islamic scholars have recognized two major branches within the practice of Sufism, and use this as one key to differentiating among the approaches of different masters and devotional lineages.[47]

 

On the one hand there is the path from the signs to the Signifier (or from the arts to the Artisan). In this branch, the seeker begins by purifying the lower self of every corrupting influence that stands in the way of recognizing all of creation as the work of God, as God's active Self-disclosure or theophany.[48] This is the way of Imam Al-Ghazali and of the majority of the Sufi orders.

 

On the other hand there is the path from the Signifier to His signs, from the Artisan to His works. In this branch the seeker experiences divine attraction (jadhba), and is able to enter the path with a glimpse of its endpoint, of direct apprehension of the Divine Presence towards which all spiritual striving is directed. This does not replace the striving to purify the heart, as in the other branch; it simply stems from a different point of entry into the path. This is the way primarily of the masters of the Naqshbandi and Shadhili orders.[49]

 

Contemporary scholars may also recognize a third branch, attributed to the late Ottoman scholar Said Nursi and explicated in his vast Qur'ân commentary called the Risale-i Nur. This approach entails strict adherence to the way of Muhammad, in the understanding that this wont, or sunnah, proposes a complete devotional spirituality adequate to those without access to a master of the Sufi way.[50]

[edit] Contributions to other domains of scholarship

 

Sufism has contributed significantly to the elaboration of theoretical perspectives in many domains of intellectual endeavor. For instance, the doctrine of "subtle centers" or centers of subtle cognition (known as Lataif-e-sitta) addresses the matter of the awakening of spiritual intuition[51] in ways that some consider similar to certain models of chakra in Hinduism. In general, these subtle centers or latâ'if are thought of as faculties that are to be purified sequentially in order to bring the seeker's wayfaring to completion. A concise and useful summary of this system from a living exponent of this tradition has been published by Muhammad Emin Er.[47]

 

Sufi psychology has influenced many areas of thinking both within and outside of Islam, drawing primarily upon three concepts. Ja'far al-Sadiq (both an imam in the Shia tradition and a respected scholar and link in chains of Sufi transmission in all Islamic sects) held that human beings are dominated by a lower self called the nafs, a faculty of spiritual intuition called the qalb or spiritual heart, and a spirit or soul called ruh. These interact in various ways, producing the spiritual types of the tyrant (dominated by nafs), the person of faith and moderation (dominated by the spiritual heart), and the person lost in love for God (dominated by the ruh).[52]

 

Of note with regard to the spread of Sufi psychology in the West is Robert Frager, a Sufi teacher authorized in the Halveti Jerrahi order. Frager was a trained psychologist, born in the United States, who converted to Islam in the course of his practice of Sufism and wrote extensively on Sufism and psychology.[53]

 

Sufi cosmology and Sufi metaphysics are also noteworthy areas of intellectual accomplishment.

[edit] Sufi practices

 

The devotional practices of Sufis vary widely. This is because an acknowledged and authorized master of the Sufi path is in effect a physician of the heart, able to diagnose the seeker's impediments to knowledge and pure intention in serving God, and to prescribe to the seeker a course of treatment appropriate to his or her maladies. The consensus among Sufi scholars is that the seeker cannot self-diagnose, and that it can be extremely harmful to undertake any of these practices alone and without formal authorization.[54]

 

Prerequisites to practice include rigorous adherence to Islamic norms (ritual prayer in its five prescribed times each day, the fast of Ramadan, and so forth). Additionally, the seeker ought to be firmly grounded in supererogatory practices known from the life of Muhammad (such as the "sunna prayers"). This is in accordance with the words, attributed to God, of the following, a famous Hadith Qudsi:

 

My servant draws near to Me through nothing I love more than that which I have made obligatory for him. My servant never ceases drawing near to Me through supererogatory works until I love him. Then, when I love him, I am his hearing through which he hears, his sight through which he sees, his hand through which he grasps, and his foot through which he walks.

 

It is also necessary for the seeker to have a correct creed (Aqidah),[55] and to embrace with certainty its tenets.[56] The seeker must also, of necessity, turn away from sins, love of this world, the love of company and renown, obedience to satanic impulse, and the promptings of the lower self. (The way in which this purification of the heart is achieved is outlined in certain books, but must be prescribed in detail by a Sufi master.) The seeker must also be trained to prevent the corruption of those good deeds which have accrued to his or her credit by overcoming the traps of ostentation, pride, arrogance, envy, and long hopes (meaning the hope for a long life allowing us to mend our ways later, rather than immediately, here and now).

 

Sufi practices, while attractive to some, are not a means for gaining knowledge. The traditional scholars of Sufism hold it as absolutely axiomatic that knowledge of God is not a psychological state generated through breath control. Thus, practice of "techniques" is not the cause, but instead the occasion for such knowledge to be obtained (if at all), given proper prerequisites and proper guidance by a master of the way. Furthermore, the emphasis on practices may obscure a far more important fact: The seeker is, in a sense, to become a broken person, stripped of all habits through the practice of (in the words of Imam Al-Ghazali words) solitude, silence, sleeplessness, and hunger.[57]

[edit] Dhikr

Main article: Dhikr

Allah as having been written on the disciple's heart according to Qadiri Al-Muntahi order

 

Dhikr is the remembrance of God commanded in the Qur'an for all Muslims through a specific devotional act, such as the repetition of divine names, supplications and aphorisms from hadith literature and the Qur'an. More generally, dhikr is any activity in which the Muslim maintains awareness of God.. To engage in dhikr is to practice consciousness of the Divine Presence and love, or "to seek a state of godwariness". Some types of dhikr are prescribed for all Muslims, and do not require Sufi initiation or the prescription of a Sufi master because they are deemed to be good for every seeker under every circumstance.[58]

 

Some Sufi orders engage in ritualized dhikr ceremonies, or sema. Sema includes various forms of worship such as: recitation, singing (the most well known being the Qawwali music of the Indian sub-continent), instrumental music, dance (most famously the Sufi whirling of the Mevlevi order), incense, meditation, ecstasy, and trance.[59]

 

Some Sufi orders stress and place extensive reliance upon Dhikr, and likewise in Qadri Al-Muntahi Sufi tariqa, which was originated by Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi. This practice of Dhikr is called Dhikr-e-Qulb (remembrance of Allah by Heartbeats). The basic idea in this practice is to visualize the Arabic name of God, Allah, as having been written on the disciple's heart.[60]

[edit] Muraqaba

Main article: Muraqaba

 

The practice of muraqaba can be likened to the practices of meditation attested in many faith communities. The word muraqaba is derived from the same root (r-q-b) occurring as one of the 99 Names of God in the Qur'an, al-Raqîb, meaning "the Vigilant" and attested in verse 4: 1 of the Qur'an. Through muraqaba, a person watches over or takes care of the spiritual heart, acquires knowledge about it, and becomes attuned to the Divine Presence, which is ever vigilant.

 

While variation exists, one description of the practice within a Naqshbandi lineage reads as follows:

 

He is to collect all of his bodily senses in concentration, and to cut himself off from all preoccupation and notions that inflict themselves upon the heart. And thus he is to turn his full consciousness towards God Most High while saying three times: “Ilahî anta maqsûdî wa-ridâka matlûbî — my God, you are my Goal and Your good pleasure is what I seek.” Then he brings to his heart the Name of the Essence — Allâh — and as it courses through his heart he remains attentive to its meaning, which is “Essence without likeness.” The seeker remains aware that He is Present, Watchful, Encompassing of all, thereby exemplifying the meaning of his saying (may God bless him and grant him peace): “Worship God as though you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He sees you.” And likewise the prophetic tradition: “The most favored level of faith is to know that God is witness over you, wherever you may be.”[61]

 

[edit] Sufi pilgrimages

The Darbar-e-Gohar Shahi Tomb in Kotri Sharif.

 

In popular Sufism (i.e., devotional practices that have achieved currency in world cultures through Sufi influence), one common practice is to visit the tombs of saints, great scholars, and righteous people. This is a particularly common practice in South Asia, where famous tombs include those of Khoja Afāq, near Kashgar, in China; Sachal Sarmast, in Sindh, Pakistan; and the Darbar-e-Gohar Shahi in Kotri Sharif. Likewise, in Fez, Morocco, a popular destination for such pious visitation is the Zaouia Moulay Idriss II and the yearly visitation to see the current Sheikh of the Qadiri Boutchichi Tariqah, Sheikh Sidi Hamza al Qadiri al Boutchichi to celebrate the Mawlid (which is usually televised on Mocorran National television).

 

Visitors may invoke blessings upon those interred, and seek divine favor and proximity.

  

[edit] Islam and Sufism

[edit] Sufism and Islamic law

Tomb of Shaikh Salim Chisti, Uttar Pradesh, India.

 

Scholars and adherents of Sufism sometimes describe Sufism in terms of a threefold approach to God as explained by a tradition (hadîth) attributed to Muhammad,"The Shariah is my words, the tariqa is my actions, and the haqiqa is my interior states". Sufis believe the shariah, tariqa and haqiqa are mutually interdependent.[62] The tariqa, the ‘path’ on which the mystics walk, has been defined as ‘the path which comes out of the Shariah, for the main road is called shar, the path, tariq.’ No mystical experience can be realized if the binding injunctions of the Shariah are not followed faithfully first. The path, tariqa, however, is narrower and more difficult to walk. It leads the adept, called sâlik (wayfarer), in his sulûk (wayfaring), through different stations (maqâmât) until he reaches his goal, the perfect tawhîd, the existential confession that God is One.[63] Jalaluddin Ar Rumi, the initiator of the Mavlevi Tariqah, spoke of the Shariah and Sufism in such terms, " To be a real Sufi, is to be to Muhammad, salalahu alaihy wasallam, just as Abu Bakr was to him, peace be upon him." Shaykh al-Akbar Muhiuddeen Ibn Arabi mentions," When we see someone in this Community who claims to be able to guide others to Allah, but is remiss in but one rule of the Sacred Law - even if he manifests miracles that stagger the mind - asserting that his shortcoming is a special dispensation for him, we do not even turn to look at him, for such a person is not a sheikh, nor is he speaking the truth, for no one is entrusted with the secrets of Allah Most High save one in whom the ordinances of the Sacred Law are preserved. (Jami' karamat al-awliya')" [64]

[edit] Traditional Islamic thought and Sufism

 

The literature of Sufism emphasizes highly subjective matters that resist outside observation, such as the subtle states of the heart. Often these resist direct reference or description, with the consequence that the authors of various Sufi treatises took recourse to allegorical language. For instance, much Sufi poetry refers to intoxication, which Islam expressly forbids. This usage of indirect language and the existence of interpretations by people who had no training in Islam or Sufism led to doubts being cast over the validity of Sufism as a part of Islam. Also, some groups emerged that considered themselves above the Sharia and discussed Sufism as a method of bypassing the rules of Islam in order to attain salvation directly. This was disapproved of by traditional scholars.

 

For these and other reasons, the relationship between traditional Islamic scholars and Sufism is complex and a range of scholarly opinion on Sufism in Islam has been the norm. Some scholars, such as Al-Ghazali, helped its propagation while other scholars opposed it. W. Chittick explains the position of Sufism and Sufis this way:

 

In short, Muslim scholars who focused their energies on understanding the normative guidelines for the body came to be known as jurists, and those who held that the most important task was to train the mind in achieving correct understanding came to be divided into three main schools of thought: theology, philosophy, and Sufism. This leaves us with the third domain of human existence, the spirit. Most Muslims who devoted their major efforts to developing the spiritual dimensions of the human person came to be known as Sufis.

 

[edit] Traditional and non-traditional Sufi groups

The mausoleum (gongbei) of Ma Laichi in Linxia City, China.

 

The traditional Sufi orders, which are in majority, emphasize the role of Sufism as a spiritual discipline within Islam. Therefore, the Sharia (traditional Islamic law) and the Sunnah are seen as crucial for any Sufi aspirant. One proof traditional orders assert is that almost all the famous Sufi masters of the past Caliphates were experts in Sharia and were renowned as people with great Iman (faith) and excellent practice. Many were also Qadis (Sharia law judges) in courts. They held that Sufism was never distinct from Islam and to fully comprehend and practice Sufism one must be an observant Muslim.

 

There is some speculation that some Sufi orders in India might have become influenced by other traditions after the translation of Greek philosophical works into Arabic during the third Islamic century. Sharda highlights these unsurprising similarities by stating that: "After the fall of Muslim orthodoxy from power at the centre of India for about a century, due to the invasion of Timur, the Sufi became free from the control of the Muslim orthodoxy and consorted with Hindu saints, who influenced them to an amazing extent. The Sufi adopted Monism and wifely devotion from the Vaishnava Vedantic school and Bhakti and Yogic practices from the Vaishnava Vedantic school. By that time, the popularity of the Vedantic pantheism among the Sufis had reached its zenith."[65]

 

In recent decades there has been a growth of non-traditional Sufi movements in the West. Examples include the Universal Sufism movement, the Golden Sufi Center, the Sufi Foundation of America, the neo-sufism of Idries Shah, Sufism Reoriented and the International Association of Sufism. Rumi has become one of the most widely read poets in the United States, thanks largely to the translations published by Coleman Barks.

[edit] Islamic positions on non-Islamic Sufi groups

Question book-new.svg

This section does not cite any references or sources.

Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

Unbalanced scales.svg

This article may be inaccurate in or unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (May 2009)

 

The use of the title Sufi by non-traditional groups to refer to themselves, and their appropriation of traditional Sufi masters (most notably Jalaluddin Rumi) as sources of authority or inspiration, is not accepted by some Muslims who are Sufi adherents.

 

Many of the great Sufi masters of the present and the past instruct that: one needs the form of the religious practices and the outer dimension of the religion to fulfill the goals of the inner dimension of Sufism (Proximity to God). The exoteric practices prescribed by God contain inner meanings and provide the means for transformation with the proper spiritual guidance of a master. It is thought that through the forms of the ritual and prescribed Islamic practices (prayer, pilgrimage, fasting, charity and affirmation of Divine Unity) the soul may be purified and one may then begin to embark on the mystical quest. In fact it is considered psychologically dangerous by some Sufi masters to participate in Sufi practices, such as "dhikr", without adhering to the outer aspects of the religion which add spiritual balance and grounding to the practice.

 

Some traditional Sufis also object to interpretations of classical Sufis texts by writers who have no grounding in the traditional Islamic sciences and therefore no prerequisites for understanding such texts. These are considered by certain conventional Islamic scholars as beyond the pale of the religion.[66] This being said, there are Islamic Sufi groups that are open to non-Muslim participation.

[edit] Reception

[edit] Perception outside Islam

 

Sufi mysticism has long exercised a fascination upon the Western world, and especially its orientalist scholars.[67] Figures like Rumi have become household names in the United States, where Sufism is perceived as quietist and less political.[67]

 

The Islamic Institute in Mannheim, Germany, which works towards the integration of Europe and Muslims, sees Sufism as particularly suited for interreligious dialogue and intercultural harmonisation in democratic and pluralist societies; it has described Sufism as a symbol of tolerance and humanism – undogmatic, flexible and non-violent.[68]

[edit] The Influence of Sufism on Judaism

 

A great influence was exercised by Sufism upon the ethical writings of Jews in the Middle Ages. In the first writing of this kind, we see "Kitab al-Hidayah ila Fara'iḍ al-Ḳulub", Duties of the Heart, of Bahya ibn Pakuda. This book was translated by Judah ibn Tibbon into Hebrew under the title "Ḥovot ha-Levavot".[69]

 

The precepts prescribed by the Torah number 613 only; those dictated by the intellect are innumerable.

 

This was precisely the argument used by the Sufis against their adversaries, the Ulamas. The arrangement of the book seems to have been inspired by Sufism. Its ten sections correspond to the ten stages through which the Sufi had to pass in order to attain that true and passionate love of God which is the aim and goal of all ethical self-discipline.

 

It is noteworthy that in the ethical writings of the Sufis Al-Kusajri and Al-Harawi there are sections which treat of the same subjects as those treated in the "Ḥobot ha-Lebabot" and which bear the same titles: e.g., "Bab al-Tawakkul"; "Bab al-Taubah"; "Bab al-Muḥasabah"; "Bab al-Tawaḍu'"; "Bab al-Zuhd". In the ninth gate, Baḥya directly quotes sayings of the Sufis, whom he calls Perushim. However, the author of the Ḥovot ha-Levavot did not go so far as to approve of the asceticism of the Sufis, although he showed a marked predilection for their ethical principles.

 

The Jewish writer Abraham bar Ḥiyya teaches the asceticism of the Sufis. His distinction with regard to the observance of Jewish law by various classes of men is essentially a Sufic theory. According to it there are four principal degrees of human perfection or sanctity; namely:

 

(1) of "Shari'ah," i.e., of strict obedience to all ritual laws of Islam, such as prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, almsgiving, ablution, etc., which is the lowest degree of worship, and is attainable by all

(2) of Ṭariqah, which is accessible only to a higher class of men who, while strictly adhering to the outward or ceremonial injunctions of religion, rise to an inward perception of mental power and virtue necessary for the nearer approach to the Divinity

(3) of "Ḥaḳikah," the degree attained by those who, through continuous contemplation and inward devotion, have risen to the true perception of the nature of the visible and invisible; who, in fact, have recognized the Godhead, and through this knowledge have succeeded in establishing an ecstatic relation to it; and

(4) of the "Ma'arifah," in which state man communicates directly with the Deity.

 

[edit] In popular culture

[edit] In movies

 

The movie Bab´Aziz (2005) directed by Nacer Khemir tells the story of an old and blind dervish who must cross the desert with his little granddaughter during many days and nights to get to his last dervish reunion celebrated every 30 years. The movie is full of Sufi mysticism and even contain quotes of Rumi and other sufi poets and shows an ecstatic sufi dance. In Monsieur Ibrahim Omar Sherrif's character professes to be a Muslim in the sufi tradition.

[edit] In music

 

Madonna, on her 1994 record Bedtime Stories sings a song called "Bedtime Story" that discusses achieving a high unconsciousness level. The video for the song shows an ecstatic Sufi ritual with many dervishes dancing, Arabic calligraphy and some other Sufi elements. In her 1998 song Bittersweet, she recites Rumi´s poem by the same name. In her 2001 Drowned World Tour, Madonna sang the song Secret showing rituals from many religions, including a Sufi dance.

 

Singer/songwritter Loreena McKennitt, on her record The Mask And Mirror (1994), has a song called The Mystic's Dream, influenced by Sufi music and poetry. The band, MewithoutYou, has made references to Sufi parables, including the name of their upcoming album It’s all crazy! It’s all false! It’s all a dream! It’s alright (2009). Lead singer, Aaron Weiss, claims this influence comes from his parents, who are both Sufi converts.

 

A.R. Rahman scored a Sufi Qawwali, Khwaja Mere Khwaja, in the Bollywood film Jodhaa Akbar.

 

Junoon, a band from Pakistan, is famous for creating the genre of Sufi rock by combining elements of modern hard rock and traditional folk music with Sufi poetry.

[edit] See also

Chitra, also spelled as Citra, is an Indian genre of art that includes painting, sketch and any art form of delineation. The earliest mention of the term Chitra in the context of painting or picture is found in some of the ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism and Pali texts of Buddhism

 

NOMENCLATURE

Chitra (IAST: Citra, चित्र) is a Sanskrit word that appears in the Vedic texts such as hymns 1.71.1 and 6.65.2 of the Rigveda. There, and other texts such as Vajasaneyi Samhita, Taittiriya Samhita, Satapatha Brahmana and Tandya Brahmana, Chitra means "excellent, clear, bright, colored, anything brightly colored that strikes the eye, brilliantly ornamented, extraordinary that evokes wonder". In the Mahabharata and the Harivamsa, it means "picture, sktech, dilineation", and is presented as a genre of kala (arts). Many texts generally dated to the post-4th-century BCE period, use the term Chitra in the sense of painting, and Chitrakara as a painter. For example, the Sanskrit grammarian Panini in verse 3.2.21 of his Astadhyayi highlights the word chitrakara in this sense. Halls and public spaces to display paintings are called chitrasalas, and the earliest known mention of these are found in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

 

A few Indian regional texts such as Kasyapa silpa refer to painting by others words. For example, abhasa – which literally means "semblance, shining forth", is used in Kasyapa-shilpa to mean as a broader category of painting, of which chitra is one of three types. The verses in section 4.4 of the Kasyapa-silpa state that there are three types of images – those which are immovable (walls, floor, terracota, stucco), movable, and those which are both movable-immovable (stone, wood, gems).[5] In each of these three, states Kasyapa-shipa, are three classes of expression – ardhacitra, citra, and citra-abhasa. Ardhacitra is an art form where a high relief is combined with painting and parts of the body is not seen (it appears to be emerging out of the canvas). The Citra is the form of picture artwork where the whole is represented with or without integrating a relief. Citrabhasha is the form where an image is represented on a canvas or wall with colors (painting). However, states Commaraswamy, the word Abhasa has other meanings depending on the context. For example, in Hindu texts on philosophy, it implies the "field of objective experience" in the sense of the intellectual image internalized by a person during a reading of a subject (such as an epic, tale or fiction), or one during a meditative spiritual experience.

 

In some Buddhist and Hindu texts on methods to prepare a manuscript (palm leaf) or a composition on a cloth, the terms lekhya and alekhya are also used in the context of a chitra. More specifically, alekhya is the space left while writing a manuscript leaf or cloth, where the artist aims to add a picture or painting to illustrate the text.

 

HISTORY

The earliest explicit reference to painting in an Indian text is found in verse 4.2 of the Maitri Upanishad where it uses the phrase citrabhittir or "like a painted wall". The Indian art of painting is also mention in a number of Buddhist Pali suttas, but with the modified spelling of Citta. This term is found in the context of either a painting, or painter, or painted-hall (citta-gara) in Majjhima Nikaya 1.127, Samyutta Nikaya 2.101 and 3.152, Vinaya 4.289 and others. Among the Jain texts, it is mentioned in Book 2 of the Acaranga Sutra as it explains that Jaina monk should not indulge in the pleasures of watching a painting.

 

The Kamasutra, broadly accepted to have been complete by about the 4th-century CE, recommends that the young man should surprise the girl he courts with gifts of color boxes and painted scrolls. The Viddhasalabhanjika – another Hindu kama- and kavya–text uses chitra-simile in verse 1.16, as "pictures painted by the god of love, with the brush of the mind and the canvas of the heart".

 

The nature of a chitra (painting), how the viewer's mind projects a two dimensional artwork into a three dimensional representation, is used by Asanga in Mahayana Sutralamkara – a 3rd to 5th-century Sanskrit text of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, to explain "non-existent imagination" as follows:

 

Just as in a picture painted according to rules, there are neither projections nor depressions and yet we see it in three dimensions, so in the non-existent imagination there is no phenomenal differentiation, and yet we behold it.

— Mahayana Sutralamkara 13.7, Translated in French by Sylvain Levi

 

According to Yoko Taniguchi and Michiyo Mori, the art of painting the caves at the c. 6th-century Buddhas of Bamiyan site in Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban Muslims in the late 1990s, were likely introduced to this region from India along with the literature on early Buddhism.

 

TEXTS

There are many important dedicated Indian treatises on chitra. Some of these are chapters within a larger encyclopedia-like text. These include:

 

Chitrasutras, chapters 35–43 within the Hindu text Vishnudharmottara Purana (the standard, and oft referred to text in the Indian tradition)

Chitralaksana of Nagnajit (a classic on classical painting, 5th-century CE or earlier making it the oldest known text on Indian painting; but the Sanskrit version has been lost, only version available is in Tibet and it states that it is a translation of a Sanskrit text)

Samarangana Sutradhara (mostly architecture treatise, contains a large section on paintings)

Aparajitaprccha (mostly architecture treatise, contains a large section on paintings)

Manasollasa (an encyclopedia, contains chapters on paintings)

Abhilashitartha chinatamani

Sivatatva ratnakara

Chitra Kaladruma

Silpa ratna

Narada silpa

Sarasvati silpa

Prajapati silpa

Kasyapa silpa

 

These and other texts on chitra not only discuss the theory and practice of painting, some of them include discussions on how to become a painter, the diversity and the impact of a chitra on viewers, of aesthetics, how the art of painting relates to other arts (kala), methods of preparing the canvas or wall, methods and recipes to make color pigments. For example, the 10th-century Chitra Kaladruma presents recipe for making red color paint from the resin of lac insects. Other colors for the historic frescoes found in India, such as those in the Ajanta Caves, were obtained from nature. They mention earthy and mineral (inorganic) colorants such as yellow and red ochre, orpigment, green celadonite and ultramarine blue (lapis lazuli). The use of organic colorants prepared per a recipe in these texts have been confirmed through residue analysis and modern chromatographic techniques.

 

THEORY

The Indian concepts of painting are described in a range of texts called the shilpa shastras. These typically begin by attributing this art to divine sources such as Vishvakarma and ancient rishis (sages) such as Narayana and Nagnajit, weaving some mythology, highlighting chitra as a means to express ideas and beauty along with other universal aspects, then proceed to discuss the theory and practice of painting, sketching and other related arts. Manuscripts of many these texts are found in India, while some are known to be lost but are found outside India such as in Tibet and Nepal. Among these are the Citrasutras in the 6th-century Visnudharmottara Purana manuscripts discovered in India, and the Citralaksana manuscript discovered in Tibet (lost in India). This theory include early Indian ideas on how to prepare a canvas or substrate, measurement, proportion, stance, color, shade, projection, the painting's interaction with light, the viewer, how to captivate the mind, and other ideas.

 

According to the historic Indian tradition, a successful and impactful painting and painter requires a knowledge of the subject – either mythology or real life, as well as a keen sense of observation and knowledge of nature, human behavior, dance, music, song and other arts. For example, section 3.2 of Visnudharmottara Purana discusses these requirements and the contextual knowledge needed in chitra and the artist who produces it. The Chitrasutras in the Vishnudharmottara Purana state that the sculpture and painting arts are related, with the phrase "as in Natya, so in Citra". This relationship links them in rasa (aesthetics) and as forms of expression.

 

THE PAINTING

A chitra is a form of expression and communication. According to Aparajitaprccha – a 12th-century text on arts and architecture, just like the water reflects the moon, a chitra reflects the world. It is a rupa (form) of how the painter sees or what the painter wants the viewer to observe or feel or experience.

 

A good painting is one that is alive, breathing, draws in and affects the viewer. It captivates the minds of viewers, despite their diversity. Installed in a sala (hall or room), it enlivens the space.

 

The ornaments of a painting are its lines, shading, decoration and colors, states the 6th-century Visnudharmottara Purana. It states that there are eight gunas (merits, features) of a chitra that the artist must focus on: posture; proportion; the use of the plumb line; charm; detail (how much and where); verisimilitude; kshaya (loss, foreshortening) and; vrddhi (gain). Among the dosas (demerits, faults) of a painting and related arts, states Chitrasutra, are lines that are weak or thick, absence of variety, errors in scale (oversized eyes, lips, cheeks), inconsistency across the canvas, deviations from the rules of proportion, improper posture or sentiment, and non-merging of colors.

 

LIMBS OF THE PAINTING

Two historical sets called "chitra anga", or "limbs of painting" are found in Indian texts. According to the Samarangana Sutradhara – an 11th-century Sanskrit text on Hindu architecture and arts, a painting has eight limbs:

 

Vartika – manufacture of brushes

Bhumibandhana – preparation of base, plaster, canvas

Rekhakarma – sketching

Varnakarma – coloring

Vartanakarma – shading

lekhakarana – outlining

Dvikakarma – second and final lining

Lepyakarma – final coating

 

According to Yashodhara's Jayamangala, a Sanskrit commentary on Kamasutra, there are sadanga (six limbs)[note 5] in the art of alekhyam and chitra (drawing and painting):

 

Rupa-bhedah, or form distinction; this requires a knowledge of characteristic marks, diversity, manifested forms that distinguish states of something in the same genus/class

Pramanani, or measure; requires knowledge of measurement and proportion rules (talamana)

Bhava yojanam, or emotion and its joining with other parts of the painting; requires understanding and representing the mood of the subject

Lavanya yojanam, or rasa, charm; requires understanding and representing the inner qualities of the subject

Sadrsyam, or resemblance; requires knowledge of visual correspondence across the canvas

Varnika-bhanga or color-pigment-analysis; requires knowledge how colors distribute on the canvas and how they visually impact the viewer.

 

These six limbs are arranged stylistically in two ways. First as a set of compound (Rupa-bhedah and Varnika-bhanda), a set of joining (middle two yojnam), and a set of single words (Pramanani and Sadrsyam). Second, states Victor Mair, the six limbs in this Hindu text are paired in a set of differentiation skills (first two), then a pair of aesthetic skills, and finally a pair of technical skills. These limbs parallel the 12th-century Six principles of Chinese painting of Xie He. {refn|group=note|The Hua Chi of Teng Ch'un, a 12th-century Chinese text, mentions the Buddhist temple of Nalanda with frescoes about the Buddha painted inside. It states that the Indian Buddhas look different from those painted by Chinese, as the Indian paintings have Buddha with larger eyes, their ears are curiously stretched and the Buddhas have their right shoulder bare. It then states that the artists first make a drawing of the picture, then paint a vermilion or gold colored base. It also mentions the use of ox-glue and a gum produced from peach trees and willow juice, with the artists preferring the latter. According to Coomaraswamy, the ox-glue in the Indian context mentioned in the Chinese text is probably the same as the recipe found in the Sanskrit text Silparatna, one where the base medium is produced from boiling buffalo skin in milk, followed by drying and blending process.

 

The six limbs in Jayamangala likely reflect the earliest and more established Hindu tradition for chitra. This is supported by the Chitrasutras found in the Vishnudharmottara Purana. They explicitly mention pramanani and lavanya as key elements of a painting, as well as discuss the other four of the six limbs in other sutras. The Chitrasutra chapters are likely from about the 4th or 5th-century. Numerous other Indian texts touch upon the elements or aspects of a chitra. For example, the Aparajitaprccha states that the essential elements of a painting are: citrabhumi (background), the rekha (lines, sketch), the varna (color), the vartana (shading), the bhusana (decoration) and the rasa (aesthetic experience).

 

THE PAINTER

The painter (chitrakara, rupakara) must master the fundamentals of measurement and proportions, state the historic chitra texts of India. According to these historic texts, the expert painter masters the skills in measurement, characteristics of subjects, attributes, form, relative proportion, ornament and beauty, states Isabella Nardi – a scholar known for her studies on chitra text and traditions of India. According to the Chitrasutras, a skilled painter needs practice, and is one who is able to paint neck, hands, feet, ears of living beings without ornamentation, as well as paint water waves, flames, smoke, and garments as they get affected by the speed of wind. He paints all types of scenes, ranging from dharma, artha and kama. A painter observes, then remembers, repeating this process till his memory has all the details he needs to paint, states Silparatna. According to Sivatattva Ratnakara, he is well versed in sketching, astute with measurements, skilled in outlining (hastalekha), competent with colors, and ready to diligently mix and combine colors to create his chitra. The painter is a creative person, with an inner sense of rasa (aesthetics).

 

THE VIEWER

The painter should consider the diversity of viewers, states the Indian tradition of chitra. The experts and critics with much experience with paintings study the lines, shading and aesthetics, the uninitiated visitors and children enjoy the vibrancy of colors, while women tend to be attracted to the ornamentation of form and the emotions. A successful painter tends to captivate a variety of minds. A painter should remember that the visual and aesthetic impact of a painting triggers different responses in different audiences.

 

The Silparatna – a Sanskrit text on the arts, states that the painting should reflect its intended place and purpose. A theme suitable for a palace or gateway is different from that in a temple or the walls of a home. Scenes of wars, misery, death and suffering are not suitable paintings within homes, but these can be important in a chitrasala (museum with paintings). Auspicious paintings with beautiful colors such as those that cheer and enliven a room are better for homes, states Silparatna.

 

PRACITICE

According to the art historian Percy Brown, the painting tradition in India is ancient and the persuasive evidence are the oldest known murals at the Jogimara caves. The mention of chitra and related terms in the pre-Buddhist Vedic era texts, the chitra tradition is much older. It is very likely, states Brown, the pre-Buddhist structures had paintings in them. However, the primary building material in ancient India was wood, the colors were organic materials and natural pigments, which when combined with the tropical weather in India would naturally cause the painting to fade, damage and degrade over the centuries. It is not surprising, therefore, that sample paintings and historic evidence for chitra practice are unusual. The few notable surviving examples of chitra are found hidden in caves, where they would be naturally preserved a bit better, longer and would be somewhat protected from the destructive effects of wind, dust, water and biological processes.

Some notable, major surviving examples of historic paintings include:

 

Murals at Jogimara cave (eight panels of murals, with a Brahmi inscription, 2nd or 1st century BCE, Hindu), oldest known ceiling paintings in India in remote Ramgarh hills of northern Chhattisgarh, below on wall of this cave is a Brahmi inscription in Magadhi language about a girl named Devadasi and a boy named Devadina (either they were lovers and wrote a love-graffiti per one translation, or they were partners who together converted natural caves here into a theatre with painted walls per another translation)

 

Mural at Sitabhinji Group of Rock Shelters (c. 400 CE Ravanachhaya mural with an inscription, near a Shiva temple in remote Odisha, a non-religious painting), the oldest surviving example of a tempera painting in eastern states of India

 

Murals at Ajanta caves (Jataka tales, Buddhist), 5th-century CE, Maharashtra

Murals at Badami Cave Temples (Hindu), 6th-century CE, Karnataka (secular paintings along with one of the earliest known painting of a Hindu legend about Shiva and Parvati inside a Vaishnava cave)

Murals at Bagh caves (Hallisalasya dance, Buddhist or Hindu), Madhya Pradesh

Murals at Ellora caves (Flying vidyadharas, Jain), Maharashtra

Frescoes at Sittanavasal cave (Nature scenes likely representing places of Tirthankara sermons, Jain), Tamil Nadu

Frescoes at Thirunadhikkara cave temple (Flowers and a woman, likely a scene of puja offering to Ganesha, another of Vishnu, Hindu), Travancore region, Kerala-Tamil Nadu

Paintings at the Brihadisvara temple (Dancer, Hindu), Tamil Nadu

Manuscript paintings (numerous states such as Gujarat, Kashmir, Kerala, Odisha, Assam; also Nepal, Tibet; Buddhist, Jain, Hindu

Vijayanagara temples (Hindu), Karnataka

Chidambaram temple (Hindu), Tamil Nadu

Chitrachavadi (Hindu, a choultry–mandapa near Madurai with Ramayana frescoes)

Pahari paintings (Hindu), Himachal Pradesh and nearby regions

Rajput paintings (Hindu), Rajasthan

Deccan paintings (Hindu, Jain)

Kerala paintings (Hindu)

Telangana paintings (Hindu)

Mughal paintings (Indo-Islamic)

 

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Kalamkari (Hindu)

Pattas (Jain, Hindu)

 

WIKIPEDIA

Originally published in 1966 in hardcover and reprinted in 1989. There has likely been no other attempts to state so plainly though in rather obtuse academic language the underpinnings of how human society constructs reality for the humans within said society. To attempt such a description today would be to garner a thousand cuts from the aperspective post modernists and their progeny of which I will say no more.

 

The two men attempting this project straddle two different academic disciplines and two cultures between them. One Peter L. Berger a professor and director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture at Boston University while the other Thomas Luckmann a professor of Sociology at the University of Konstanz in West Germany at the time of writing this book. Neither reveal any personal information within the book itself, but as the treatise unfolds a droll sense of humor is apparent in the cultural examples given i.e. a trio consisting of a man, a woman and a Lesbian and the mythology they might create in order to enjoy the fruits in the proclivities available to them.

 

The premise of the book is that reality is constructed through the use of language and stored in bodies of knowledge. The objectification of articles in the environment help to construct everyday reality. Language possesses an inherent quality of reciprocity which allows it to create reality in real time. Language constructs symbolic representations far beyond reality. Symbols and signs can detach language from everyday reality and come back to inform it. Semantic fields determine what will be preserved of societal interactions which is passed on from generation to generation. This social stock of knowledge creates society.

 

Because humans are born before they are fully able to fend for themselves in the wild, society has derived a social order among individuals to provide stability to create the activities that will further socialize babies and children to operate as adults. This is the fascinating thing about humans as a biological organism and a species. The length of time that spans of nearly two decades that it takes to socialize humans has allowed for enormous diversity in how this is achieved as shown in the many cultures that encompass the planet. Our current era seems to have forgotten how crucial this socialization of the young is to their own well being especially as they approach the cusp of adulthood given how we have so easily been persuaded to hand over these young minds first to television and now to the smart phone and with it the internet, the ready portal to porn and caches of information to bolster any belief whatsoever.

 

The authors continue to posit that reality exists only as individuals are conscious of it. Yet this individual consciousness is socially determined. Thus the individual consciousness is simultaneously shaped by the society it is simmering in. Any bi and tricultural person can attest to that fact from their own sampling of more than one culture.

 

In society, reality is maintained by institutions where the collected bodies of knowledge are stored. The institution is real only in so far as it is realized by those executing these societal realities in performed roles. Through these roles their characters are defined from which they also derive their objective sense. And language is the medium by which logic ensues and legitimates this socially constructed reality. These are the tools we are given to defend and create our reality within a given society. So we are walking talking maintainers of reality with varying degrees of authority and power given to us by these established institutions. We also internalize this knowledge and the accompanying reality and participate in rituals of tradition to cement the reality into history.

 

In this ongoing battle to maintain a society we have psychologists to reign in the deviants. This sociological view of psychologists and their created realities in terms of diagnosis is particularly potent. For it is in the construction of individual identities that psychologists get to manage those whose proclivities don’t quite match up with the internalized societal expectations. While sociologists comment on the big picture. A picture often being suppressed by political interests.

 

The authors urged society to further study these reality making forces, but in the long run the territory covered by sociologists seems to have been overshadowed by the rise of psychologists and the ever increasing number of diagnosis that is theirs to treat. The big picture view of how society creates reality may have gone underground picked up as my teacher said by the conservative Right while being completely ignored by the identity obsessed Left.

 

As a final note the authors remind us that humans may attempt to create some pretty far fetched social realities, but all such realities will face the limitations of the human body faced as it is with such needs as hunger and sexual reproduction. And as the Buddhist like to remind us — old age, sickness and death.

 

I found the book to be a much needed reminder of the power of words and ideas to create reality. It gave me the necessary psychological distance to observe this phenomenon as it is happening now. And not be sucked in by the insistence of individuals that certain thoughts are innate or proven by science. It confirmed for me my original instincts about how culture is created to control individual thoughts and beliefs. And how those beliefs are not necessarily either correct or permanent.

 

Chitra, also spelled as Citra, is an Indian genre of art that includes painting, sketch and any art form of delineation. The earliest mention of the term Chitra in the context of painting or picture is found in some of the ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism and Pali texts of Buddhism

 

NOMENCLATURE

Chitra (IAST: Citra, चित्र) is a Sanskrit word that appears in the Vedic texts such as hymns 1.71.1 and 6.65.2 of the Rigveda. There, and other texts such as Vajasaneyi Samhita, Taittiriya Samhita, Satapatha Brahmana and Tandya Brahmana, Chitra means "excellent, clear, bright, colored, anything brightly colored that strikes the eye, brilliantly ornamented, extraordinary that evokes wonder". In the Mahabharata and the Harivamsa, it means "picture, sktech, dilineation", and is presented as a genre of kala (arts). Many texts generally dated to the post-4th-century BCE period, use the term Chitra in the sense of painting, and Chitrakara as a painter. For example, the Sanskrit grammarian Panini in verse 3.2.21 of his Astadhyayi highlights the word chitrakara in this sense. Halls and public spaces to display paintings are called chitrasalas, and the earliest known mention of these are found in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

 

A few Indian regional texts such as Kasyapa silpa refer to painting by others words. For example, abhasa – which literally means "semblance, shining forth", is used in Kasyapa-shilpa to mean as a broader category of painting, of which chitra is one of three types. The verses in section 4.4 of the Kasyapa-silpa state that there are three types of images – those which are immovable (walls, floor, terracota, stucco), movable, and those which are both movable-immovable (stone, wood, gems).[5] In each of these three, states Kasyapa-shipa, are three classes of expression – ardhacitra, citra, and citra-abhasa. Ardhacitra is an art form where a high relief is combined with painting and parts of the body is not seen (it appears to be emerging out of the canvas). The Citra is the form of picture artwork where the whole is represented with or without integrating a relief. Citrabhasha is the form where an image is represented on a canvas or wall with colors (painting). However, states Commaraswamy, the word Abhasa has other meanings depending on the context. For example, in Hindu texts on philosophy, it implies the "field of objective experience" in the sense of the intellectual image internalized by a person during a reading of a subject (such as an epic, tale or fiction), or one during a meditative spiritual experience.

 

In some Buddhist and Hindu texts on methods to prepare a manuscript (palm leaf) or a composition on a cloth, the terms lekhya and alekhya are also used in the context of a chitra. More specifically, alekhya is the space left while writing a manuscript leaf or cloth, where the artist aims to add a picture or painting to illustrate the text.

 

HISTORY

The earliest explicit reference to painting in an Indian text is found in verse 4.2 of the Maitri Upanishad where it uses the phrase citrabhittir or "like a painted wall". The Indian art of painting is also mention in a number of Buddhist Pali suttas, but with the modified spelling of Citta. This term is found in the context of either a painting, or painter, or painted-hall (citta-gara) in Majjhima Nikaya 1.127, Samyutta Nikaya 2.101 and 3.152, Vinaya 4.289 and others. Among the Jain texts, it is mentioned in Book 2 of the Acaranga Sutra as it explains that Jaina monk should not indulge in the pleasures of watching a painting.

 

The Kamasutra, broadly accepted to have been complete by about the 4th-century CE, recommends that the young man should surprise the girl he courts with gifts of color boxes and painted scrolls. The Viddhasalabhanjika – another Hindu kama- and kavya–text uses chitra-simile in verse 1.16, as "pictures painted by the god of love, with the brush of the mind and the canvas of the heart".

 

The nature of a chitra (painting), how the viewer's mind projects a two dimensional artwork into a three dimensional representation, is used by Asanga in Mahayana Sutralamkara – a 3rd to 5th-century Sanskrit text of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, to explain "non-existent imagination" as follows:

 

Just as in a picture painted according to rules, there are neither projections nor depressions and yet we see it in three dimensions, so in the non-existent imagination there is no phenomenal differentiation, and yet we behold it.

— Mahayana Sutralamkara 13.7, Translated in French by Sylvain Levi

 

According to Yoko Taniguchi and Michiyo Mori, the art of painting the caves at the c. 6th-century Buddhas of Bamiyan site in Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban Muslims in the late 1990s, were likely introduced to this region from India along with the literature on early Buddhism.

 

TEXTS

There are many important dedicated Indian treatises on chitra. Some of these are chapters within a larger encyclopedia-like text. These include:

 

Chitrasutras, chapters 35–43 within the Hindu text Vishnudharmottara Purana (the standard, and oft referred to text in the Indian tradition)

Chitralaksana of Nagnajit (a classic on classical painting, 5th-century CE or earlier making it the oldest known text on Indian painting; but the Sanskrit version has been lost, only version available is in Tibet and it states that it is a translation of a Sanskrit text)

Samarangana Sutradhara (mostly architecture treatise, contains a large section on paintings)

Aparajitaprccha (mostly architecture treatise, contains a large section on paintings)

Manasollasa (an encyclopedia, contains chapters on paintings)

Abhilashitartha chinatamani

Sivatatva ratnakara

Chitra Kaladruma

Silpa ratna

Narada silpa

Sarasvati silpa

Prajapati silpa

Kasyapa silpa

 

These and other texts on chitra not only discuss the theory and practice of painting, some of them include discussions on how to become a painter, the diversity and the impact of a chitra on viewers, of aesthetics, how the art of painting relates to other arts (kala), methods of preparing the canvas or wall, methods and recipes to make color pigments. For example, the 10th-century Chitra Kaladruma presents recipe for making red color paint from the resin of lac insects. Other colors for the historic frescoes found in India, such as those in the Ajanta Caves, were obtained from nature. They mention earthy and mineral (inorganic) colorants such as yellow and red ochre, orpigment, green celadonite and ultramarine blue (lapis lazuli). The use of organic colorants prepared per a recipe in these texts have been confirmed through residue analysis and modern chromatographic techniques.

 

THEORY

The Indian concepts of painting are described in a range of texts called the shilpa shastras. These typically begin by attributing this art to divine sources such as Vishvakarma and ancient rishis (sages) such as Narayana and Nagnajit, weaving some mythology, highlighting chitra as a means to express ideas and beauty along with other universal aspects, then proceed to discuss the theory and practice of painting, sketching and other related arts. Manuscripts of many these texts are found in India, while some are known to be lost but are found outside India such as in Tibet and Nepal. Among these are the Citrasutras in the 6th-century Visnudharmottara Purana manuscripts discovered in India, and the Citralaksana manuscript discovered in Tibet (lost in India). This theory include early Indian ideas on how to prepare a canvas or substrate, measurement, proportion, stance, color, shade, projection, the painting's interaction with light, the viewer, how to captivate the mind, and other ideas.

 

According to the historic Indian tradition, a successful and impactful painting and painter requires a knowledge of the subject – either mythology or real life, as well as a keen sense of observation and knowledge of nature, human behavior, dance, music, song and other arts. For example, section 3.2 of Visnudharmottara Purana discusses these requirements and the contextual knowledge needed in chitra and the artist who produces it. The Chitrasutras in the Vishnudharmottara Purana state that the sculpture and painting arts are related, with the phrase "as in Natya, so in Citra". This relationship links them in rasa (aesthetics) and as forms of expression.

 

THE PAINTING

A chitra is a form of expression and communication. According to Aparajitaprccha – a 12th-century text on arts and architecture, just like the water reflects the moon, a chitra reflects the world. It is a rupa (form) of how the painter sees or what the painter wants the viewer to observe or feel or experience.

 

A good painting is one that is alive, breathing, draws in and affects the viewer. It captivates the minds of viewers, despite their diversity. Installed in a sala (hall or room), it enlivens the space.

 

The ornaments of a painting are its lines, shading, decoration and colors, states the 6th-century Visnudharmottara Purana. It states that there are eight gunas (merits, features) of a chitra that the artist must focus on: posture; proportion; the use of the plumb line; charm; detail (how much and where); verisimilitude; kshaya (loss, foreshortening) and; vrddhi (gain). Among the dosas (demerits, faults) of a painting and related arts, states Chitrasutra, are lines that are weak or thick, absence of variety, errors in scale (oversized eyes, lips, cheeks), inconsistency across the canvas, deviations from the rules of proportion, improper posture or sentiment, and non-merging of colors.

 

LIMBS OF THE PAINTING

Two historical sets called "chitra anga", or "limbs of painting" are found in Indian texts. According to the Samarangana Sutradhara – an 11th-century Sanskrit text on Hindu architecture and arts, a painting has eight limbs:

 

Vartika – manufacture of brushes

Bhumibandhana – preparation of base, plaster, canvas

Rekhakarma – sketching

Varnakarma – coloring

Vartanakarma – shading

lekhakarana – outlining

Dvikakarma – second and final lining

Lepyakarma – final coating

 

According to Yashodhara's Jayamangala, a Sanskrit commentary on Kamasutra, there are sadanga (six limbs)[note 5] in the art of alekhyam and chitra (drawing and painting):

 

Rupa-bhedah, or form distinction; this requires a knowledge of characteristic marks, diversity, manifested forms that distinguish states of something in the same genus/class

Pramanani, or measure; requires knowledge of measurement and proportion rules (talamana)

Bhava yojanam, or emotion and its joining with other parts of the painting; requires understanding and representing the mood of the subject

Lavanya yojanam, or rasa, charm; requires understanding and representing the inner qualities of the subject

Sadrsyam, or resemblance; requires knowledge of visual correspondence across the canvas

Varnika-bhanga or color-pigment-analysis; requires knowledge how colors distribute on the canvas and how they visually impact the viewer.

 

These six limbs are arranged stylistically in two ways. First as a set of compound (Rupa-bhedah and Varnika-bhanda), a set of joining (middle two yojnam), and a set of single words (Pramanani and Sadrsyam). Second, states Victor Mair, the six limbs in this Hindu text are paired in a set of differentiation skills (first two), then a pair of aesthetic skills, and finally a pair of technical skills. These limbs parallel the 12th-century Six principles of Chinese painting of Xie He. {refn|group=note|The Hua Chi of Teng Ch'un, a 12th-century Chinese text, mentions the Buddhist temple of Nalanda with frescoes about the Buddha painted inside. It states that the Indian Buddhas look different from those painted by Chinese, as the Indian paintings have Buddha with larger eyes, their ears are curiously stretched and the Buddhas have their right shoulder bare. It then states that the artists first make a drawing of the picture, then paint a vermilion or gold colored base. It also mentions the use of ox-glue and a gum produced from peach trees and willow juice, with the artists preferring the latter. According to Coomaraswamy, the ox-glue in the Indian context mentioned in the Chinese text is probably the same as the recipe found in the Sanskrit text Silparatna, one where the base medium is produced from boiling buffalo skin in milk, followed by drying and blending process.

 

The six limbs in Jayamangala likely reflect the earliest and more established Hindu tradition for chitra. This is supported by the Chitrasutras found in the Vishnudharmottara Purana. They explicitly mention pramanani and lavanya as key elements of a painting, as well as discuss the other four of the six limbs in other sutras. The Chitrasutra chapters are likely from about the 4th or 5th-century. Numerous other Indian texts touch upon the elements or aspects of a chitra. For example, the Aparajitaprccha states that the essential elements of a painting are: citrabhumi (background), the rekha (lines, sketch), the varna (color), the vartana (shading), the bhusana (decoration) and the rasa (aesthetic experience).

 

THE PAINTER

The painter (chitrakara, rupakara) must master the fundamentals of measurement and proportions, state the historic chitra texts of India. According to these historic texts, the expert painter masters the skills in measurement, characteristics of subjects, attributes, form, relative proportion, ornament and beauty, states Isabella Nardi – a scholar known for her studies on chitra text and traditions of India. According to the Chitrasutras, a skilled painter needs practice, and is one who is able to paint neck, hands, feet, ears of living beings without ornamentation, as well as paint water waves, flames, smoke, and garments as they get affected by the speed of wind. He paints all types of scenes, ranging from dharma, artha and kama. A painter observes, then remembers, repeating this process till his memory has all the details he needs to paint, states Silparatna. According to Sivatattva Ratnakara, he is well versed in sketching, astute with measurements, skilled in outlining (hastalekha), competent with colors, and ready to diligently mix and combine colors to create his chitra. The painter is a creative person, with an inner sense of rasa (aesthetics).

 

THE VIEWER

The painter should consider the diversity of viewers, states the Indian tradition of chitra. The experts and critics with much experience with paintings study the lines, shading and aesthetics, the uninitiated visitors and children enjoy the vibrancy of colors, while women tend to be attracted to the ornamentation of form and the emotions. A successful painter tends to captivate a variety of minds. A painter should remember that the visual and aesthetic impact of a painting triggers different responses in different audiences.

 

The Silparatna – a Sanskrit text on the arts, states that the painting should reflect its intended place and purpose. A theme suitable for a palace or gateway is different from that in a temple or the walls of a home. Scenes of wars, misery, death and suffering are not suitable paintings within homes, but these can be important in a chitrasala (museum with paintings). Auspicious paintings with beautiful colors such as those that cheer and enliven a room are better for homes, states Silparatna.

 

PRACITICE

According to the art historian Percy Brown, the painting tradition in India is ancient and the persuasive evidence are the oldest known murals at the Jogimara caves. The mention of chitra and related terms in the pre-Buddhist Vedic era texts, the chitra tradition is much older. It is very likely, states Brown, the pre-Buddhist structures had paintings in them. However, the primary building material in ancient India was wood, the colors were organic materials and natural pigments, which when combined with the tropical weather in India would naturally cause the painting to fade, damage and degrade over the centuries. It is not surprising, therefore, that sample paintings and historic evidence for chitra practice are unusual. The few notable surviving examples of chitra are found hidden in caves, where they would be naturally preserved a bit better, longer and would be somewhat protected from the destructive effects of wind, dust, water and biological processes.

Some notable, major surviving examples of historic paintings include:

 

Murals at Jogimara cave (eight panels of murals, with a Brahmi inscription, 2nd or 1st century BCE, Hindu), oldest known ceiling paintings in India in remote Ramgarh hills of northern Chhattisgarh, below on wall of this cave is a Brahmi inscription in Magadhi language about a girl named Devadasi and a boy named Devadina (either they were lovers and wrote a love-graffiti per one translation, or they were partners who together converted natural caves here into a theatre with painted walls per another translation)

 

Mural at Sitabhinji Group of Rock Shelters (c. 400 CE Ravanachhaya mural with an inscription, near a Shiva temple in remote Odisha, a non-religious painting), the oldest surviving example of a tempera painting in eastern states of India

 

Murals at Ajanta caves (Jataka tales, Buddhist), 5th-century CE, Maharashtra

Murals at Badami Cave Temples (Hindu), 6th-century CE, Karnataka (secular paintings along with one of the earliest known painting of a Hindu legend about Shiva and Parvati inside a Vaishnava cave)

Murals at Bagh caves (Hallisalasya dance, Buddhist or Hindu), Madhya Pradesh

Murals at Ellora caves (Flying vidyadharas, Jain), Maharashtra

Frescoes at Sittanavasal cave (Nature scenes likely representing places of Tirthankara sermons, Jain), Tamil Nadu

Frescoes at Thirunadhikkara cave temple (Flowers and a woman, likely a scene of puja offering to Ganesha, another of Vishnu, Hindu), Travancore region, Kerala-Tamil Nadu

Paintings at the Brihadisvara temple (Dancer, Hindu), Tamil Nadu

Manuscript paintings (numerous states such as Gujarat, Kashmir, Kerala, Odisha, Assam; also Nepal, Tibet; Buddhist, Jain, Hindu

Vijayanagara temples (Hindu), Karnataka

Chidambaram temple (Hindu), Tamil Nadu

Chitrachavadi (Hindu, a choultry–mandapa near Madurai with Ramayana frescoes)

Pahari paintings (Hindu), Himachal Pradesh and nearby regions

Rajput paintings (Hindu), Rajasthan

Deccan paintings (Hindu, Jain)

Kerala paintings (Hindu)

Telangana paintings (Hindu)

Mughal paintings (Indo-Islamic)

 

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Kalamkari (Hindu)

Pattas (Jain, Hindu)

 

WIKIPEDIA

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

a list of interests (in alphabetical order)

 

4th plateau deep spiritual, :o), a glass or two of brandy, a man with a gun on a horse, a stack of bad magazines, a web of lies, a.s.h., abdul and cleopatra, adjusting my package, all those things you’re supposed to do, an all-female backing band, animated gifs, antiquated idioms, anxiety loops, armored bulldozer rampage, artistic license, ass morning, autoenucleation, bad inventions, being a sensitive artist, being held, being poetic, big silly dogs, bin laden weed, bitterness and hate, boo boos, brevity, british accents, calling people darling, candy covered in hair, cat sneezes, caviar in a tube, charles crumb’s art, clarisse and her demons, conditional love, copy & paste, cutlery, deadpan humor, dear leader, defense mechanisms, discipline and punish, dogs wearing costumes, dry wit, ego death, ellipses, emoticons, erotic fan fiction, feeling on your booty, femininity, “flying” into a rage, fordcomic, forum girls, freedom club, frost in twilight, fuck egg, girls that smell nice, glass crystals, gloryhood, good clean fun, goon meat, groovy riffs, heh, hitting the road, hogwarsh, hopeless melancholy, hot sauce, i’m only half joking, impossible standards, innumerable kisses, internalizing disorders, internets, interracial incest, ironic interests, italian gesticulations, joe spinell’s voice, juicy internet drama, jung’s archetypes, laser vision ability, learned helplessness, lechery, libertinage, life in jail, lobve stinks, lofty pleasures, lonely hearts, long shadows, lousy excuses, low art, magic dust, maimiidance.gif, maslow’s hierarchy, melodrama, meta-irony, miltonic isolation, misery and woe, mixtapes, my one-track mind, my redemption, naiveté, niggas on skis, no funeral, nocturnal wind, nsa dome, oh word?, old bricks, oomaharumooma, outlaw poets, partridge family temple, parrot videos, partying alone, perfect miracles, pinyin, plucking a little daisy, poetic absurdity, porngrind, posting in fyad, predator’s manifesto, pressing my luck, r&b slow jams, rechargeable batteries, regression and fixation, resting on my laurels, revealing ugly truths, romantic fantasies, saying platitudes ironically, seafoam, second guessing myself, shaking in anger, ship it holla, shredded roses, sighing excessively, sleepytime, socks, songs for me, space aliens smoking pot, spelling things wrong, spouting catchphrases, standing beneath the rainy sky, staying up late, surreal aloofness, swing sets, synesthesia, tabbed browsing, table manners, tech noodling, teenage ants, terrorist chic, the crime library, the saturday boy, the so-called counterculture, there be ghosts afoot, thinly veiled contempt, thug love, tibetan bowls, true crime novels, two 40s, ugly animals, unironic t-shirts, unorthodox prose, victor cayro, warshin my dog, wearing hats in bed, why i cry, world’s smallest horse, writing rhymes in the shower, yearning, youtube comments, zomg

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020. «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020) & Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (13 Apr. 2020). S.v., "Raffaello architetto", in: The NYT (06 March 2020); Università di Padova (20/07/2020); Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020); Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020) & Prof. Cammy Brothers (2001). wp.me/pbMWvy-uQ

 

1). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

 

A monographic exhibition with over two hundred masterpieces among paintings, drawings and comparative works, dedicated to Raffaello on the 500th anniversary of his death, which took place in Rome on April 6, 1520 at the age of just 37 years old.

 

The exhibition, which finds inspiration particularly in the Raffaello's fundamental Roman period which consecrated him as an artist of incomparable and legendary greatness, tells his whole complex and articulated creative path with richness of detail through a vast corpus of works, for the first time exposed all together.

 

Many institutions involved have contributed to enrich the exhibition with masterpieces from their collections: among these, in Italy, the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, the Brescia Museums Foundation, and abroad, in addition to the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the National Gallery of London, the Prado Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Royal Collection, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (5 March - June 2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/copia-di-raffaello

 

2.1). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», in: Intervento delle Scuderie del Quirinale per la maratona del MiBACT "Italia chiamò" / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Mar 13, 2020).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8l6q9ywLxY&t=112s

 

2.2). ROME - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. / English / Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (Apr. 13, 2020). www.youtube.com/watch?v=s58gYvvNrKQ&t=61s

 

3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

 

Il 6 aprile 1520 muore a Roma, a trentasette anni, Raffaello Sanzio, il più grande pittore del Rinascimento. La città sembra fermarsi nella commozione e nel rimpianto, mentre la notizia della scomparsa si diffonde con incredibile rapidità in tutte le corti europee. S’interrompeva non solo un percorso artistico senza precedenti, ma anche l’ambizioso progetto di ricostruzione grafica della Roma antica, commissionato dal pontefice, che avrebbe riscattato dopo secoli di oblio e rovina la grandezza e la nobiltà della capitale dei Cesari, affermando inoltre una nuova idea di tutela. Sepolto secondo le sue ultime volontà nel Pantheon, simbolo della continuità fra diverse tradizioni di culto, forse l’esempio più emblematico dell’architettura classica, Raffaello diviene immediatamente oggetto di un processo di divinizzazione, mai veramente interrotto, che ci consegna oggi la perfezione e l’armonia della sua arte.

A distanza di cinquecento anni, questa mostra racconta la sua storia e insieme quella di tutta la cultura figurativa occidentale che l’ha considerato un modello imprescindibile. La mostra, articolata secondo un’idea originale, propone un percorso che ripercorre a ritroso l’avventura creativa di Raffaello, da Roma a Firenze, da Firenze all’Umbria, fino alla nativa Urbino. Un incalzante flash-back che consente di ripensare il percorso biografico partendo dalla sua massima espansione creativa negli anni di Leone X. Risalendo il corso della vita di Raffaello di capolavoro in capolavoro, il visitatore potrà rintracciare in filigrana la prefigurazione di quel linguaggio classico che solo a Roma, assimilata nel profondo la lezione dell’antico, si sviluppò con una pienezza che non ha precedenti nella storia dell’arte. Grazie ad un numero eccezionale di capolavori provenienti dalle maggiori raccolte italiane ed europee, la mostra organizzata dalle Scuderie del Quirinale insieme con le Gallerie degli Uffizi, costituisce un’occasione ineguagliabile per osservare da vicino le invenzioni dell’Urbinate. Il suo breve, luminoso percorso ha cambiato per sempre la storia delle arti e del gusto: Raffaello rivive nelle sale dell’esposizione che lo celebra come genio universale.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020).

www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/raffaello-000

 

3). ROME «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

ROME - In the Virtual (and Actual) Footsteps of Raphael - In Italy and beyond, the plan was to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death with great fanfare. Then came the pandemic, and the virtual world stepped in. The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

 

______

Also see:

 

--- ROME - Rome Celebrates the Short, but Beautiful, Life of Raphael - Amid new coronavirus restrictions on museums in Italy, a blockbuster show traces the artistʼs life from finish to start. The NYT (06 March 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/raphael-rome-coronavirus....

______

 

This was supposed to be the year of Raphael. Five hundred years after his death at 37, the Renaissance master was due to receive the exalted rollout reserved for artistic superstars: blockbuster museum shows in Rome and London; conferences and lectures at universities and cultural centers around the world; flag-waving and wreath-laying in his Italian hometown, Urbino. There was even the tang of controversy when the advisory committee of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery resigned en masse to protest the inclusion of a precious papal portrait in the big exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Then the coronavirus hit and Raphael’s annus mirabilis turned into the world’s annus horribilis.

 

When news of the handsome young artist’s death broke in Rome on April 6, 1520, Pope Leo X wept and church bells tolled all over the city.

Half a millennium later, Rome was in lockdown along with the rest of Italy as deaths from the virus spiraled. The Scuderie show, a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of more than 200 works (120 by Raphael) from all over the world, was forced to shut its doors after just three days, despite having presold a record 70,000 tickets. Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon was supposed to be adorned with a red rose every day of 2020 to commemorate his death — but the ancient temple was also shuttered because of the virus. Lectures and conferences were canceled, postponed or moved online.

 

Poor Raphael. Last year, the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death came off without a hitch. Raphael’s devotees hoped that this

year’s celebrations would restore the artist’s luster, which has dimmed over the past centuries. When the world fell ill this past winter,

Raphael was one of the casualties. But all is not lost. The Scuderie show reopened on June 2 and will remain up until the end of August. The Scuderie’s president, Mario de Simoni, had expected as many as 500,000 people to see the show pre-virus, but now says the number probably won’t exceed 160,000. For those unable to attend in person, the Scuderie has released an English-language version of its excellent video, recapping the highlights of the exhibition, room by room. You’ll want to hit the pause button in Room 2 to admire two masterpieces on loan from the Louvre: a selfportrait with a friend and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, one of the glories of Renaissance portraiture. The close-ups of his paintings of women in Room 6 testify to the artist’s passionate appreciation of feminine beauty. Other Scuderie videos (in Italian) delve into particular aspects of his genius — for instance, the jewelry worn by his female subjects, or the literary world he moved in.

Tour guides such as Clam Tours and Joy of Rome now offer virtual journeys in which small groups can zoom around Italy in the footsteps of the artist. On Sept. 13, for example, you can join the Renaissance specialist Antonio Forcellino and other Italian art experts on Clam Tour’s virtual exploration of Raphael’s incomparable frescoes of the four sibyls at Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace church ($25). Check out Joy of Rome’s free two-minute video about Raphael’s frescoes at the Villa Farnesina to see if you’d like to sign up for a two-and-a-half hour virtual tour (prices on request).

 

Even on a laptop screen, Raphael’s ever-evolving craftsmanship and quicksilver brilliance are apparent. “The year of Raphael has not

been ruined, but simply modified,” said Marzia Faietti, a curator of the Scuderie show. “Since many conferences and lectures have been

put off until next year, in a sense there will be two years of Raphael.”

 

For Italians, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity to relish their cultural treasures without the tourist hordes. “I cried,”

said Francesca Pagliaro, founder of the Joy of Rome tour company, of the experience of standing alone in the Vatican’s recently reopened

Sala di Costantino — one of four rooms in the museum frescoed by Raphael and his students, and which you can view here. “It’s the first

time in five years that I’ve seen the Stanze without scaffolding — and I had it to myself,” Ms. Pagliaro said. “It was magical.” Americans, barred from European travel for the foreseeable future, will have to make do with all this virtual magic. Not ideal — but Raphael’s magic is powerful, subtle and enduring enough to withstand the challenge.

 

The spirit of Urbino

I can attest to this because back in November 2019, I had the opportunity to follow in Raphael’s actual, not virtual, footsteps in Italy. I stood

shivering in the room where he was born in Urbino in 1483. I knelt at the austere tomb in a niche inside the Pantheon where he was

interred 37 years later. I feasted my eyes not only on paintings and frescoes, but on the humble church and glorious Roman chapel that

attest to his emerging genius for architecture. My pilgrimage would be impossible today — but thanks to the wonders of the internet and

the resourcefulness of Italy’s leading cultural institutions, I can remotely retrace my steps, refresh my memories and relive the

revelations.

 

The first revelation came, aptly, in Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale, the magnificent Renaissance palace constructed in the late 15th century by the

humanist and warlord Federico da Montefeltro that now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche. Judge the magnificence for yourself

by clicking through Google Images’ impressive photo archive. Another click puts you face to face with the museum’s sole work by Raphael

— the haunting portrait known as “La Muta” (“The Mute Woman”). As in so many of his portraits, Raphael posed this stern beauty against a solid dark background, eschewing any visual cues that would evoke a sense of place.

 

How, I wondered, did Urbino influence the art of its most famous son?

 

I posed this question to Peter Aufreiter, then director of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, when I sat down with him in his office in the

Palazzo Ducale. Mr. Aufreiter’s response was to click on an image of Raphael’s 1507 portrait of Federico’s son, Duke Guidobaldo da

Montefeltro (now in the Uffizi), and then summon me to the window. “Look at the hillside across the valley and that house at the base of

the hill — it’s the same background Raphael put in his painting of Guidobaldo.” You can see exactly what Mr. Aufreiter meant by using the

magnify feature on this online image. Urbino’s steep green landscape, limpid light and crystalline architecture — you can also get a good sense of it here — imprinted themselves on the artist’s young mind and surface repeatedly in his work.

 

Even though Raphael spent most of his career in Florence and Rome, Mr. Aufreiter insists that Urbino, whose cityscape has changed little

since the Renaissance, is where you can feel his spirit most intensely.

 

The spirit is palpable in the artisans’ quarter surrounding the house where Raphael was born, the son of the local court painter Giovanni

Santi. Near the summit of the ski-slope-pitched Via Raffaello, just a stone’s throw from the rather pompous bronze monument of the artist

erected in 1897, the Casa Natale di Raffaello has been preserved as a museum. There’s a rather rudimentary virtual tour on its website, but

you’ll get a better feel for the interior and exterior spaces in this YouTube video. In these bare simple rooms and the deep brick courtyard

they enclose, little imagination is required to dial the scene back to Raphael’s apprenticeship in the last years of the 15th century. Giovanni

Santi’s bottega (workshop) occupied the ground floor, and the future master grew up amid the bustle of painters grinding pigments,

dabbing madonnas and trading in art supplies.

 

Father and son conducted a more exalted commerce at Urbino’s Palazzo Ducale. Fabricated of brick, stone and flawless geometry, this

palace was one of the glories of the Italian Renaissance — not only for its divine architecture, but for the refined elegance of the nobles

who gathered here. This video captures some facets of the palace’s perfection — the way its silhouette pierces the profile of surrounding

hills, the ideal proportions of its noble courtyard, the interplay of volume and decoration in its interior.

 

Baldassare Castiglione set his 1528 masterpiece, “The Book of the Courtier,” in this storied palace — and it was here that the young

Raphael polished his manners, sharpened his wit, cultivated invaluable connections and acquired a lifelong passion for classical antiquity.

Raised at court, Raphael was pursued by the powerful (Popes Julius II and Leo X), esteemed by the brilliant (Castiglione and the Urbinoborn

architect Donato Bramante were close friends) and adored by the beautiful. “Raphael was a very amorous person,” wrote Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer. It was Vasari who originated the claim that Raphael died after an overindulgence in sex with his Roman mistress, Margherita Luti. Whatever really killed him on April 6, 1520, Raphael accomplished much and rose high in his brief life — but he never ceased to be “il maestro Urbinate,” the master from Urbino.

 

A couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

Orphaned when his father died in 1494 (his mother had died three years earlier), Raphael spent his teenage years as an apprentice before

undertaking commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. It’s likely that he was in Florence by 1504 — not as a permanent resident but rather a

couch-surfing brush-for-hire.

 

Though Raphael’s footsteps in Florence are faint, there is no question that he encountered the works of both Leonardo da Vinci and

Michelangelo here — including, very likely, the Mona Lisa, which you can view here, and the marble statue of David, which you can see

and read about on the Accademia’s detailed website. Critics and connoisseurs have been measuring this Renaissance trio against each other for 500 years now. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is the ideal place to revisit this rivalry, both in person and virtually. After a recent renovation, paintings by the big three have been put on display in two beautifully lit adjoining rooms, and you can find them on the Uffizi website.

 

To my eyes, neither Michelangelo nor Leonardo ever matched the sheer painterly virtuosity of the fringed white collar that Raphael stitched around the neck of the cloth merchant Agnolo Doni, or the faint dent he incised between the young businessman’s anxious brows (use the magnify function to zoom in on this image). Agnolo’s 15-year-old bride, Maddalena Strozzi, hangs beside him, posed like the Mona Lisa with bejeweled hands clasped on her lap, but clad in a kaleidoscope of watered red silk, embroidered blue damask and shimmering gauze. Across the Arno are the glories of the Pitti Palace’s Galleria Palatina — the largest collection of Raphael’s works outside the Vatican. Unlike the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace retains the ambience and layout of an aristocratic residence: Paintings are stacked three deep in gilded high-ceilinged chambers; works are arranged idiosyncratically rather than chronologically; and the lighting can be maddeningly inadequate. Luckily for remote visitors, the lighting is much better on the palace’s website, as well as in the Italian and Spanish language videos about the museum’s treasures, posted here.

 

To the Eternal City

Raphael was summoned to Rome in 1508 by Pope Julius II, and he remained there until his death in 1520. Those 12 final years in the

Eternal City marked the apogee of his career. Painter, architect, entrepreneur, archaeologist, pioneer printmaker, Raphael became the

prototype of the artist as celebrity — the Andy Warhol of the Renaissance.

 

In pre-pandemic Rome, visitors had to endure the lines and tour groups that plagued the Vatican Museums in order to spend a few crowded moments with one of Raphael’s supreme accomplishments: the four papal chambers, known as the Stanze di Raffaello, that the artist and his workshop frescoed between 1508 and 1520. These days, in-person visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums enjoy the Stanze along with the nearby Sistine Chapel in ideal conditions. But remote visits can also be rewarding, thanks to the beautifully produced videos and virtual tours now available on the Vatican’s website. With the click of a mouse, you can hop back and forth between the virtual Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Stanze and decide for yourself which is the greater masterpiece.

 

“Everything he had in art, he had from me,” the curmudgeonly Michelangelo once grumbled of his younger rival. When you view their

roughly contemporaneous fresco cycles one after the other (or side by side on your computer), it’s clear that Raphael did much more than

borrow. “The School of Athens,” the most celebrated work in the Stanze, has the propulsive tension of a film paused at its climactic scene.

Cast members — a mix of classical philosophers and Renaissance savants — converse, argue, scribble, read and declaim on a sprawling,

but unified, “set” framed by classical architecture. By contrast, Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, for all its bravura, reads like a series of

static cels.

 

After the Vatican’s Raphael Stanze, a logical next stop, whether actually or virtually, is the Villa Farnesina, with its two beguiling frescoed

loggias — “The Triumph of Galatea” in one of the loggias and “Cupid and Psyche” in the other. Despite the name, this riverside Trastevere landmark is neither a villa nor originally a Farnese property, but rather a suburban pleasure pavilion that Agostino Chigi built for himself in the early 16th century. Chigi brought in the finest artists of the day to fresco the loggias; the result is a delightful crazy quilt of mythological scenes and astrological symbols. Raphael’s “Galatea,” with her wind-whipped tresses, elegantly torqued bare torso and dolphin-powered, scallop-shell raft, has become an icon of High Renaissance grace and wit, and you can see it and other highlights in the villa’s video archive. Even if you don’t speak Italian, the short films are worth delving into for the imagery alone.

 

From painting to architecture

In the last phase of his career, Raphael increasingly turned from painting to architecture. Sadly, his major architectural achievements — the grand unfinished Villa Madama perched on a wooded hill two miles north of the Vatican, and the classically inspired Raphael loggias inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace — were inaccessible to the public even before the pandemic, and remain so. To get a sense of Raphael’s architectural genius, make (or click) your way to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in the piazza of the same name at the northwest edge of the historic center. Like so many transplants, Raphael fell under the spell of the Eternal City’s classical substructure: Rome itself, its layers, its ruins and relics, its ceaseless commerce with the past, became a source of inspiration. The chapel he designed for Chigi inside the Popolo church evinces just how deeply and fruitfully Raphael internalized this inspiration. At first glance, it’s just another church chapel — tight, high, adorned with art and inlaid with precious stone. But on this site you can glimpse the almost miraculous geometry of this space — the interplay of disc and dome, the rhythm set up between the vertical pleats of the Corinthian pilasters and the elongated triangles of the twin red marble pyramids that mark the Chigis' graves. Fittingly, the artist who devoted the final years of his career to measuring, cataloging, preserving and mapping Roman antiquities, was laid to rest in the greatest classical structure to survive the ages: the Pantheon. If a trip to the physical Pantheon is not in the cards, you can drop in with Tom Hanks as your guide in this clip from the film “Angels and Demons.” As for his tomb — an easy-to-miss niche with a statue of the Virgin, modest and vague, presiding over the glassed-in coffin — you can view it here.

 

Marzia Faietti, curator of Rome’s Scuderie show, has been struck by how the virus has enhanced Raphael’s reputation and heightened

awareness of the twin beauties of his art and character. “Young people in particular have reacted with an outpouring of enthusiasm and

benevolence which I really didn’t expect,” she said. “The pandemic has brought suffering to so many, but the year of Raphael will be

remembered more vividly, not despite the virus, but because of it.”

 

Fonte / source:

--- The NYT (18 Aug. 2020).

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/travel/in-the-virtual-and-actu...

 

Foto / fonte / source:

--- ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483», et al., Scuderie del Quirinale / You-Tube (05/03 - 02/06/2020) (08/2020).

www.youtube.com/user/ScuderieQuirinale/videos

 

4.). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483»., in: "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

 

Artista dal talento straordinario, affermato, corteggiato, desiderato. Questo, ma non solo questo, fu Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520): l'esperienza come architetto, lo studio e l'impegno per la tutela degli edifici antichi di Roma sono di importanza centrale nel suo percorso, a partire dalla realizzazione di opere come la Cappella Chigi e Villa Madama, fino alla stesura, insieme a Baldassarre Castiglione, della Lettera a Papa Leone X. La grande mostra Raffaello 1520-1483, allestita alle Scuderie del Quirinale di Roma, prorogata fino al 30 agosto, dedica ampio spazio alla sua appassionata attività nel campo dell'architettura.

 

"Sin dai primi anni di formazione, l'interesse di Raffaello per l'architettura, in particolare per quella del mondo antico, è fortemente presente - racconta il professor Zaggia al Bo Live - Fino a sfociare in un'opera fondamentale come Lo sposalizio della vergine, in cui compare un tempio a pianta centrale sullo sfondo che interpreta in modo molto chiaro le sperimentazioni del suo tempo in ambito architettonico. A questa sperimentazione dell'architettura sul piano della rappresentazione, segue poi, con il trasferimento di Raffaello a Roma tra il 1508 e il 1509 e l'incontro con Bramante, un interesse concreto rivolto alla costruzione e alla progettazione vera e propria. Da questo punto di vista, il rapporto che si instaura tra Raffaello e Bramante per lo studio dell'architettura antica, conservata all'interno della città, diventa fondamentale punto di partenza per un approfondimento che aprirà strade nuove all'architettura successiva. Con la morte di figure di riferimento, come Bramante appunto, Raffaello diventa la personalità più importante che opera nel campo dell'architettura all'interno dei grandi cantieri pontifici. Si apre così una stagione breve in cui le opere realizzate da Raffaello saranno numerose e importanti: alcune realmente costruite, altre solo progettate".

 

In questo contesto si inserisce la Lettera a Papa Leone X, scritta nel 1519 da Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, il raffinato autore del Cortegiano (ai due, uniti da amicizia e stima reciproca, è dedicata una mostra al Palazzo Ducale di Urbino, dal titolo Baldassarre Castiglione e Raffaello.Volti e momenti della civiltà di corte), sul tema della tutela e dello studio degli edifici antichi. La premessa al documento è rintracciabile nei fatti avvenuti qualche anno prima: nell'estate del 1515, infatti, Leone X nomina Raffaello præfectus marmorum et lapidum omnium (dal 1514 l'Urbinate già dirigeva la fabbrica di San Pietro). La lettera dedicatoria, la cui prima edizione venne inserita all'interno delle opere di Baldassare Castiglione pubblicate a Padova nel 1733, si apre così: "Sono molti, padre santissimo, i quali misurando col loro piccolo giudizio le cose grandissime che delli romani circa l’arme, e della città di Roma circa al mirabile artificio, ai ricchi ornamenti e alla grandezza degli edifici si scrivono, quelle più presto stimano favolose che vere. Ma altrimenti a me suole avvenire; perché considerando dalle ruine, che ancor si veggono di Roma, la divinità di quegli animi antichi, non istimo fuor di ragione il credere che molte cose a noi paiono impossibili, che ad essi erano facilissime".

 

Nella prima parte Raffaello esalta la grandezza del passato, dichiara le proprie competenze in ambito architettonico e invita il pontefice a intervenire per garantire la tutela dei monumenti antichi, da salvare dal degrado. Nella seconda invece si concentra su questione più tecniche, introducendo anche la descrizione di uno strumento per la misurazione degli edifici antichi di sua invenzione: "Farassi adunque un instromento tondo e piano, come un astrolabio, il diametro del quale sarà due palmi o più o meno, come piace a chi vuole adoperarlo, e la circonferenza di questo istromento si partirà in otto parti giusti, e a ciascuna di quelle parti si porrà il nome d’uno degli otto venti, dividendola in trentadue altre parti picciole, che si chiameranno gradi [...] Con questo adunque misureremo ogni sorte di edificio, di che forma sia, o tondo o quadro o con istrani angoli e svoglimenti quanto dir si possa".

 

"L'importanza della lettera risiede nei principi enunciati all'inizio del testo, in cui Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione sostengono la necessità e l'urgenza di tutelare i monumenti antichi, per trasmetterle alle generazioni future - conclude Zaggia -. Non a caso la lettera, pubblicata alla fine del Settecento, una volta riconosciuto l'autore in Raffaello, diventa il punto di partenza per la legislazione adottata successivamente dagli Stati europei per la protezione del patrimonio artistico e culturale. Erede ultimo di questa tradizione è l'articolo 9 della nostra Costituzione".

 

Fonte/ source:

--- Università di Padova (20/07/2020).

ilbolive.unipd.it/it/news/raffaello-architetto-lettera-pa...

 

4.1). ROMA / Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020): «Raffaello 1520-1483»., "Raffaello architetto e la Lettera a Papa Leone X." S.v., Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione; in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

 

Nella galleria fotografica potrete scorrere la lettera di Raffaello e Baladassare Castiglione a papa Leone X. Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, Lettera a papa Leone X, s.d. [1519]. Manoscritto cartaceo costituito da 6 carte di formato 220 x 290 mm circa, ripiegate a formare fascicoletto non rilegato di 24 facciate, di cui 21 scritte, 3 bianche. ASMn, Archivio Castiglioni (acquisto 2016), busta 2, n. 12.

 

Fonte / source:

--- Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione, in: Archivio di Stato di Mantova (2020).

www.archiviodistatomantova.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/...

 

4.2). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Raffaello a Roma è un percorso a ritroso dal 1520 al 1483. Scuderie del Quirinale (05/03 - 02/06/2020), in: Jhon Correa / Facebook (1 July 2020). www.facebook.com/jhon.correa.7549

 

4.3). ROMA - «Raffaello 1520-1483». Lettera a papa Leone X di Raffaello e Baldassarre Castiglione. S.v.,

Prof. Cammy Brothers, “Architecture, History, Archaeology: Drawing Ancient Rome in the Letter to Leo X & in Sixteenth-Century Practice,” in Coming About…A Festschrift for John Shearman, ed. Lars R. Jones and Louisa C. Matthew. Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums (2001): 135–40 [in PDF].

 

Fonte / source:

--- Prof. Cammy Brothers / academia.edu. (2020).

neu.academia.edu/CammyBrothers

 

Partly as a result of wondering how it is that Japanese can see their relationships with others, including the world, as being internal to themselves, I asked 20 Japanese to rate the extent to which certain things and phenomena are so much you that "If it were changed you would cease to be yourself," and "Not public, or anyone else's." I am not sure if I asked the right questions but I was trying to get to what my subjects thought themselves to be.

 

I was particularly interested in whether they would deem their view / visual sense percepi as being themselves or out there in the world, as well as the relative selfness (?) of body, self, speech and voice.

 

I had predicted a greater importance afforded voice since it always seems that in shows featuring suited representations of Japanese cartoon and masked tokusatsu characters, they have to mime to the voice of the standards voice actor for them to be felt to be the real thing. There is also an Bean Bread Man (Anpanman) episode in which he and Germ (Baikin) Man swap bodies such that the mind of Bean Bread Man inhabits the body of Germ Man, and vice versa. The voice of the two post-swap, however, indicates the mind inhabiting the body. After the body swap (even though presumably speaking with Germ Man's vocal cords) Germ Man speaks with the voice of the voice-actor that voices Bean Bread Man.

 

The results, shown above, show that Japanese identify most strongly with their head, followed by their feelings, internal self speech, dreams, body, voice, and finally vision. Vision was felt to be way down the list, below the mid point of the scale (1-5) where 5 meant entirely essential and private, whereas 1 meant inessential and public. All the same they were half way to avowing that their vision might be private and that the wold they see might not be shared with anyone else.

 

I should have included some other, but less, self phenomena such as clothes, name, possessions, home, self-facts (such as being from Saga obviously a 1 on the "not public" part of the scale, but perhaps important to ones identity.)

 

I think that I should also make the scale a little longer 1-7 perhaps to allow for more variation between the top (head?) and bottom (possessions?) of the scale.

 

Perhaps the most interesting thing in the above graph is the reversal of the relative heights of the blue and red lines for the three items on the right. It is clear that my two questions are different. In the case of dreams for instance, one might imagine oneself continuing to exist as oneself without dreaming, and yet feel it very strange if anyone else saw, or could see ones dreams. It was interesting however that both voice and vision should be evaluated in the same way. Would I be more surprised if I suddenly had another voice, or if someone else had the same voice as me? I (incorrectly) feel that I have quite a neutral accent, so I am not sure I would be all that surprised to meet someone with my voice.

 

Finally, I am tempted to think that other people see the same colours as I do, and share the same visual field as I, but I would find it very strange if my experience went dark, if I were to become a philosophical Zombie. Perhaps my subjects' lack of surprise referred to the possibility that they should go blind.

 

Addendum

Upon reading Mochizuki(2006) I become convinced that the Kanjin (Hamaguchi, 1997) or lately interdependent self (Markus and Kitayama, 1991) that contains relationships, or parts of others, can be understood from attending to the field of vision that Mach (1987) sees as being the fundamental stuff of the universe: subjective experience. If one accords experience as having existence then it is at once ones own as it is populated by the phenomena of ones experience, a space shared between the presumed physical causes of the phenomena and the presumed subject 'having' the sensations. But as Mach himself points out, even the latter is a construction, and the sensations or where they take place, the "primordial space" (Mochizuki, ibid).

 

A difference (perhaps) between Wasuji and Mach is that the latter emphasises that different senses have different "domains," whereas the Japanese seem to see them all as all part of the same fishbowl of experience. While the fishbowl of experience consciousness may analogue, having no clear seams between its constituent domains, it seems unclear why one would say that it is a space any more than a time, since the phonetic space is extended in time, unless one is speaking more metaphorically of a field or space-time. I get the impression from reading the Japanese that they are emphasizing the visual (just as much as Westerners are emphasizing the phonetic) by their use of spatial metaphors.

 

If one is ones "climate" or is ones environment then this is surely going to effect ones attitude to tourism. In a sense it may make tourism impossible because as space, you (the Japanese) will be in their own space when they get to their destination. This is the reason why I think that Japanese travel to places with a name, name spots, (See Nenzi, 2004) even to "Ruins of Identity" (Hudson,1999) because they are going in search of names and signs rather than in search of sights (Urry, 2002). The Japanese have been doing this for a long time. Religious tourism was, and remains in search of symbols (Amulets, Fuda) that they brought back a plenty, and mass pilgrimage was brought about when such symbols were rumoured to be falling from the sky. The Japanese stilll go in search of symbols, collecting them at stamp rallies echoing the stamps reciieved at shrines, and when they go on tour now they have to read the guide book and get a guide to name and explain the sights for them. I guess that if there were no name as the places they visited they could just imagine them and be done with it. There is NOTHING to see at some Japanese famous places (Nenzi, ibid, Hudson, ibid).

 

This reversal of sight and symbol takes place also in the things that Japanese send home as proof of their having gone. The Japanese take a photo of themselves at the place stamping their face, space on the namespot, whereas Westerners write their narrative on a picture postcard stamping themselves on the sight. I am not sure why we all have an urge to do this. It is as if we are in search of each other's selves, westerners go to find spaces, Japanese to find narratives. Or perhaps it is to find the part of ourselves that we have lost.

 

Thinking of Stamp Rallies made me think of stamp collecting, philately. I used to collect stamps from all round the world but I would not have gone to get them. Again I feel a reversal is going on ini the things that Japanese and British boys like to collect without leaving their home towns. I wanted to collect symbols of distant places. My son wants to collect the faces or figures of Ultramen, Pokemon; and Bakugan, the faces of persons imaginary from distant stars.

 

I am still not sure what is going on.

 

From a Lacanian point of view....

The self is created out of a dual identification with name and image. In the west there is no generalized viewer so identification with self-image is always fraught with dependency and fragmentation issues. The possibility of an Auto gaze is almost (Totten, 2002) everywhere rejected and gazes even if simulated are presumed to be the gazes of others (Cohen & Gunz, 2002). The voice however is thought (in the West) to be essentially provide a mirror, one only has to speak to hear oneself as another says Mead (1967) and Lacan. Language provides Westerners with a Super-Addressee, Other, Generalised Other. It is generally assumed that it is only language that has this generalising, universalising, third, or fourth person tendency. In the West, those that are heard can be heard by God or themselves (see my critique of Vaz and Bruno 2003, below) and those that are watched are watched by oppressive authoritarian others.

 

But in Japan people learn to see themselves, not just from the point of view of specific others and authorities (Foucalt, 1977; see Vaz and Bruno, 2003 for a critique), but with an "I-witness" self-loving, auto-gaze of the seeing Other.

 

In both cultures, however, there is also a seed of the other modality. The mirror image is the thing that gets in there and creates the primary narcissism, that vectors the child's movement into self-hood. The phoneme itself contains a corporeal trace (Derrida) that Western philosophers are always trying to banish by raising straw men such as writing (Plato) and Speech Acts(Austin). We Westerners almost succeed in sublimation, transcendence, getting all the stuff out of the symbol.

 

And it is symbols that allow the Japanese child to "henshin" into a self. The self-symbolising stage is the mirror stage that the Japanese must grow out of. Susano whines to Amaterasu in ameru-y language misrepresenting the situation, mis-quoting his father. Language is an unreliable mirror. Language should be swept away in rituals of purity to leave only an empty mirror, pure(Nishida) uncongitized, primordial space, pur res extensa pure in res media(Kasulis).

 

And so it is with Westerners, and Lacanian psychoanalysis I think attempting to cure the patient of mirror identifications, to rid them of nasty narcissistic imaginary (cultural pun) identifications. To Westerners the image is "imaginary," mere image (Aristotle, see Brenkman)

 

So perhaps tourism is an attempt to show the self that the other modality is out there, far away, not part of self. Those names are out there, not in here. Those images can be seen in foreign parts. By writing postcards about alter images out there the Western tourist is perhaps trying to triumph over the image, persuade himself that the world or at least his own, can all be spoken. Perhaps the Japanese tourist taking photos of herself at name spots, is showing herself and the world that all the names can be seen to bring them all into the light. We are trying to collect, and at the same time reject, exteriorize that which we are missing?

 

In an absolutely excellent paper, Vaz and Bruno explain how the Auto-Gaze is seen as negative in Western scholarship, as internalisation without identification (p276). They state the problem that while we internalise an eye, there is another part of ourselves that the eye can not see. As long as this is the case, that the eye of the panopticon is internatlised, but there is another part of us that can not be seen, but is still something with which we identify, then we will experience the eye as oppressive. They then quote Ian Hacking complaining that surveillance does not see the internal monologue. This is a straightforward explanation of why one can not have both kinds of self without feeling dominated. As long as one identifies with ones internalisations, as long as one is at one with them, then they care for the self. But as long as there is another one of you (I am writing about myself!) then there is conflict. Vaz and Bruno go on to argue that the reason for the sense of self-oppression, -- the belief in the the dystopian/negativity of self-surveillance-- is the belief in a normalising power such as God. Thus far they are correct. Westerners do feel the gaze to be oppressive because they do believe (sub consciously at least) in a logocentric listening God. The belief in the logocentric god allows them to believe in themselves as narrative. And the belief in themselves as narrative splits their mind into not three but four parts the (nasty) surveyor, themselves as seen (docile body), the hearer (God), and their internal monologue (their true self). Japanese do not feel surveillance to be oppressive since they do not feel that there is anyone listening, and that their internal monologue is comprised of dead sounds.The Japanese do not have Ian Hacking's problem, because there is only the seeing and the seen.There is however a normalising power (a God, that sees) but this does not cause problems as long as it is transcendental, loving, and something that one wishes to identify with. An internalisation is always going to be a dis-identification, unless it is of a deity and not of any real other.

 

Westerners tour to be invisible. Japanese tour to be nameless. Perhaps I can get in here a bit about how Japanese never greet other Japanese when they meet each other on tour. They wish to be nameless on tour. The names are out there, not in here.

 

And when put in this way, as a war between different modes of self, then real physical animosity seems inevitable. Western culture in Japan is bound to be encouraging (yes, definately at my workplace) a linguistic panopticon, a surveying ear into Japanese society and fracturing the Japanese self as CCD cameras (made in Japan or China??? nah, I can't go that far) fracture Britons. More tourism is needed, until the structure of the tour itself can be apprehended in its full horror. We need more, darker, tourism.

 

Post script

Japanese superheros such as gao-ranger, one piece, and dragon ball, like Japanese tourists often go around in search of symbols too.

 

PPS

The way in which the symbol acts in the same way as the mirror is illustrated by the Bakugan ball/drago and card that sit on the table next too me. A sphere (the soul is a sphere in Japan) is rolled onto a card and transforms into a body of a dragon. As later lacan says, the symbolic is required to allow iditification with the image to allow Japanese believe that they are embodied minds, that their field of vision is in their body. The symbol is that admixture of externality and objectivity that allows themselves to do the mental back flip.

 

And then I read the Semiotics of Tourism from Culler 1988 and find myself very confused. Have I been speaking utter bs? Quite possibly. This usually keeps me from writing anything at all.And it is sometime since I read McCannell which I need to read again too. I was thinking more of Urry's emphasis upon sight.

1) Western Tourists are semitocians - they want to see and translate the sights in to meaning.

2) The sights are Marked but the Western tourists want to avoid places with too many markers that are "encrusted with renown," They want to give their own meanings. They want to take an ethnologist with them they seek authenticity so as to convert it into hackneyed meanings.

3) Japanese tourists do not seem to mind renown but instead seek it. Empty sights do not even need markers. They seem to want to be given meanings rather than to interpret them.

4) In both cases there is a enjoyment of something like, "The measuring up of the thing[sight] to the preformed symbolic complex" but perhaps in Japan it is the other way around, "the measuring up of the symbolic complex to the preformed image. " "It was just like I had imagined it said one of Nenzi's diarists.

 

Zotero is great for creating bibliographies but it often does not add the URL.

Ames, R. T., Kasulis, T. P., & Dissanayake, W. (1998). Self as image in Asian theory and practice. State Univ of New York Pr.

Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. (V. W. McGee, Trans., C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.) (Second Printing.). University of Texas Press. pubpages.unh.edu/~jds/BAKHTINSG.htm

Cohen, D., & Gunz, A. (2002). As seen by the other...: perspectives on the self in the memories and emotional perceptions of Easterners and Westerners. Psychological Science, 13(1), 55–59.

Culler, J. D. (1988). Framing the sign. Univ. of Oklahoma Pr.

Hamaguchi, E. (1997). A Methodological Basis for Japanese Studies—with Regard to‘ Relatum’ as Its Foundation. Japan Review, 9, 41–63.

Mead, G. H. (1967). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist (Vol. 1). The University of Chicago Press.

Mach, E. (1897). Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations. (C. M. Williams, Trans.). The Open court publishing company. Retrieved from www.archive.org/details/contributionsto00machgoog

Mochizuki, T. (2006). Climate and Ethics: Ethical Implications of Watsuji Tetsuro’s Concepts:‘ Climate’ and‘ Climaticity’. Philosophia Osaka, 1, 43–55.

Nenzi, L. (2004). Cultured Travelers and Consumer Tourists in Edo-Period Sagami. Monumenta Nipponica, 59(3), 285–319.

Hudson, M. (1999). Ruins of identity: ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands. University of Hawaii Press.

Totten, G. (2000). The Art and Architecture of the Self: Designing the‘ I’-Witness in Edith Wharton’s‘ The House of Mirth’. College Literature, 27(3), 71–87.

Urry, J. (2002). The Tourist Gaze. SAGE.

Vaz, P., & Bruno, F. (2003). Types of self-surveillance: From abnormality to individuals ‘at risk’. Surveillance & Society, 1(3), 272–291. www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles1(3)/self.pdf (highly recommended analysis of why visual surveillance has been seen as negative, dystopian "internalization without identification")

 

U.S. Embassy Staff march in support of ending violence

   

Making a stand and joining efforts in celebrating 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign 2011 in Samoa, the Chargé d’Affaires Chad Berbert and staff of U.S. Embassy Apia joined more than 300 members of government ministries, diplomatic corps, international organizations and civil society groups in a march parade on November 25. The parade on Beach Road Apia transcended from the Police Headquarter to the Government Building at Matagialalua, where the marchers were met by the Prime Minister of Samoa, Hon. Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi.

 

samoa.usembassy.gov

 

facebook.com/samoa.usembassy

 

Let’s End the Cycle of Violence

Chad J. Berbert

 

Chargé d’Affaires

U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa

 

Violence against women and girls touches Samoa just as it does other nations. Gender-based violence is a global pandemic that cuts across all borders - ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, and religion. It can threaten women and girls at any point in their life- from female feticide and inadequate access to education and nutrition to child marriage, incest, and so-called "honor" killings. It can take the form of dowry -related murder or domestic violence, rape (including spousal rape), sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking in persons, or the neglect and ostracism of widows. One in three women around the world will experience some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime. In some countries that number is as high as 70 percent.

 

This year, we once again mark "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence." It is clear that the international community must offer up more than words to answer the call to free women and girls from violence. Whether it happens behind closed doors or as a public tactic of intimidation, whether down the street or on distant shores, violence against women and girls damages us all - men and women alike.

 

We must stand up to the impunity that too often leaves the egregious perpetrators unaccountable for their crimes. We must redress the low status of women and girls around the world that renders them undervalued and vulnerable. Further, we must support the inclusion of men and boys in addressing and preventing violence and changing gender attitudes. We must increase accountability and commitment by community and government leaders on this issue, and we must highlight and promote effective programs that are already successfully at work.

 

These 16 Days are a sobering reminder that gender-based violence cannot be treated as solely a women's issue - it is a profound challenge for the entire world. Gender-based violence is not just an affront to human rights and dignity – it adversely impacts the welfare of our communities. When women and girls are abused, businesses close, incomes shrink, families go hungry, and children grow up internalizing behavior that perpetuates the cycle of violence. There is no end to the economic and detrimental social and health costs that come along with this brutality.

 

This damage is passed on to the rest of the community as judicial, health and security services are strained. Violence effectively acts as a cancer on societies, causing enormous upheaval in the progress of social and economic development. Physical violence vastly increases women's risk for a range of serious conditions, including reproductive health problems, miscarriages, and sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV. There are also strong linkages to maternal mortality, as well as poor child health, and morbidity.

 

The Government of Samoa through the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development has initiated various awareness programs such as the Gender Based Violence Project and the Mothers and Daughters Project. In civil society there have been tremendous contributions from NGO groups such as Samoa Victims Support Group, Mapusaga o Aiga, Pan Pacific South East Asian Women Association (PPSEAWA) of Samoa, and Faataua le Ola to name a few. These groups have worked tirelessly to bring to light gender violence issues and to help educate the public, prevent abuse, and break the cycle of violence.

 

These 16 days offer an opportunity to renew the commitment to free women and girls from the nightmare of violence. Countries cannot progress when half their populations are marginalized and mistreated, and subjected to discrimination. When women and girls are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities in education, healthcare, employment, and political participation, they lift up their families, their communities, and their nations – and act as agents of change.

 

As Secretary Clinton recently noted, "Investing in the potential of the world's women and girls is one of the surest ways to achieve global economic progress, political stability, and greater prosperity for women – and men - the world over."

 

Let’s make the investment. Let’s end the cycle of violence, not just for these 16 days but for our future.

[From www.hekkiboen.com]

Title:

Sifu Lin Teaching Hek Ki Boen Eng Chun at IWKA Headquarter in Amsterdam December 2010, this is the 5th HKB Lesson Sergio Iadarola Received

Content:

Sifu Lin Teaching Hek Ki Boen Eng Chun at IWKA Headquarter in Amsterdam December 2010, this is the 5th HKB Lesson Sergio Iadarola Received

   

Report:

   

On Dec 11, 2010, we had finished the first official HKB public seminar in Europe. I was happy to see how passionate they were and I was so glad to see how much they enjoy their experience in HKB.

 

There were about 90 attendees and each one of them was really into it. I can clearly see and positively sure that HKB had found another home here in Amsterdam.

 

Below is the full official report regarding our trip both in Amsterdam as well as Hong Kong, written by Suhu Benny Meng

 

Regards

 

Suhu Lin Xiang Fuk

 

————————–—————–

report begin

————————–—————–

 

2010 December Amsterdam, Hong Kong, and China Trip

 

Officially, this was the 3rd International HKB ICP training trip. The first one was accomplished in September of 2010 when Grand Master Kenneth Lin, together with Suhu Benny Meng, the International Program Director, and Suhu Sergio Iadarola traveled to Hong Kong and China. The second one was held in October of 2010 in Brazil featuring Grand Master Kenneth Lin and Suhu Benny Meng.

 

I actually flew into DC on Tuesday, December 7th, arriving at Grand Master Lin’s school late at night. We went to Chinatown for a nice dinner, and arrived at Grand Mater Lin’s home late.

 

We spent Wednesday handling all the last-minute details that always seem to crop up before an extended trip out of town. We met up with Sihing Benjamin for lunch, then Simu dropped us off at the airport for a late-afternoon flight.

 

We were well prepared and looking forward to this new adventure. It was the first time for all three of us to go to Amsterdam, and as in years past, I was traveling on my birthday for martial arts, however this was a first – celebrating in Europe. We had heard that Amsterdam was very much a multi-national, multi-ethic, international city but in the back of my mind, was the thought that there wouldn’t be any time for site-seeing due to our packed schedule.

 

The main focus for this trip was to develop future instructors in the Hek Ki Boen lineage (HKB) for the continent of Europe. This group of new Instructor Candidates is made up of students and grand students under Suhu Sergio Iadarola. HKB International decided to hold this event at Suhu Sergio’s International European HQ, with participants coming from 5 countries (6 if you count the US) with a total of 17 new ICP members.

 

I want to note something about Suhu Sergio – I respect his efforts as a Wing Chun fanatic. He’s already a successful Grand Master within his own organization with members all over the world, a true success story, but he continues to search deeper into the roots of Wing Chun. After meeting he in Hong Kong early in 2010 and being introduced to the HKB lineage, he took an interest right away and after direct experience with Grand Master Lin at the HKB HQ in US, Suhu Sergio concluded that HKB is what he’s been looking for all his life. Since that time, he’s been going 100% to develop his skill and within 6 months was certified as a Level One instructor and by his own words: he’s improved his skill tremendously and doubled his power in only six months due to HKB training. This is not a small statement from someone recognized as a Grand Master in his own family, practicing many different lineages of Wing Chun for close to 25 years!

 

Our conclusion is the same: that this system is our last stop in our search for Wing Chun’s origins. Of course, our conclusions should not be taken in any way as a statement about the effectiveness, validity, practicality, or usefulness of other Wing Chun lineages; all Wing Chun is one family, with each branch providing a different take and perspective on the core concepts of our great system. We both encourage all our students, friends, and fellow martial artists to gain direct, personal experience and make up their own minds for themselves!

 

He not only joined the HKB family, but is also encouraging and promoting this system to his downline instructors without hesitation, even knowing that he would be ‘rocking the boat’ again with his decision to move in this new direction. He assembled the cream of the crop – Instructors and Top Level students. After months of preparation from Grand Master Lin, the HKB HQ, and me together with Suhu Sergio and his own HQ staff making many behind the scenes preparations, everything came to a focused point to make this event and trip possible.

 

Initially, we had close to 30 ICP candidates for this event, but we decided to pre-screen and pre-interview the candidates ahead of time and reduced the number to 17.

 

Day One: Thursday 12/9/2010 Travel from DC to Amsterdam

 

1) Grand Master Kenneth Lin, International Program Director Benny Meng, Headquarters Senior Assistant Benjamin Blalock

 

a. Leaving on Wednesday, 12/8/2010 @ 5:54 pm

 

b. Arriving on Thursday, 12/9/2010 @ 7:15 am

 

2) Focus of Day One is on

 

1) ICP Interviews, broken down by country: Holland, Germany, Italy, Brazil & UK

 

2) Benjamin Blalock discussion on Holland HQ Business processes.

 

We arrived early on Thursday, around 7:30am. Suhu Sergio and his main HQ Instructor, Fabian Raymann, picked us up from the airport. We went to Suhu Sergio’s home and settled in after the long flight. After breakfast and cleaning up, we headed into the school. Amsterdam is a modern city with many unique architecture buildings, and very pedestrian friendly – lots of people were walking, and more were riding bikes. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of China due to the pedestrians and bicycles… but one thing for sure: water was everywhere! From canals, to streams, to fountains, to oceanfront – they told me that it was the law that, in the Netherlands, before you learn how to walk, you have to learn how to swim!

 

At the school, we formally met Suhu Sergio’s HQ staff. They gave us a quick tour of the facility. It’s in downtown Amsterdam. There are actually two locations across the street from each other, with one area dedicated to advanced training. It was very much a first class school with professional facilities. It’s exciting to see a Wing Chun school operating at this level.

 

Before long, we went straight to the intended events on the schedule, starting with the person-to-person interview with the ICP members. The process ran country by country. We started with the HQ group which consisted of 7 members (in no particular order): Fabian Raymann, Harry Kwung Bong Fung, Deniz Kara, Alex de Raaff, Michael Morris, Lai-Wing Hau, & Robert Cozstens. Good for us, English was the 2nd language so everyone understood us and we didn’t need a translator.

 

The official interview is primarily my responsibility. Each applicant is required to complete an extensive application form, and go through a formal interview process – Grand Master Lin and Suhu Sergio were there as well, and were part of the interview process with Grand Master Lin concluding the interview with questions based on previous answers. At the end of interviews for this group, what Grand Master Lin and I took away was that this was a professional group running professional service at Suhu Sergio’s IWKA HQ. I think it would be beneficial for all future School operators to come to Suhu Sergio’s HQ to see how a professional school should be run. Based on the success of the IWKA HQ, Suhu Sergio offered to train Benjamin Blalock on operations and management, to which Grand Master Lin and Benjamin both agreed.

 

After the Amsterdam ICP group interviews, we moved on to the German and UK applicants. The German group was lead by Sifu Wolfgang Herges, a direct student of Suhu Sergio; the other 5 applicants were Instructors under Sifu Herges (Alexander Smolenski, Andreas Atzeni, Malek Asad, Frederik Wortmann, & Annelene Sudau). Sifu Herges is no stranger to the martial arts – he runs one of the largest schools in Europe. His team was also highly professional and motivated.

 

The UK group was led by Sifu Paul Lawrence Hawkes, a direct downline of Suhu Sergio. Sifu Paul was joined by his student, also a full Sifu, Alan Stuart Paterson. Both of these gentlemen are already veterans of teaching martial arts and Wing Chun in UK. Sifu Alan runs the largest and most successful Kung Fu school in the UK with over 600 active students.

 

We completed the majority of the interviews on the first day, with only Italy and Brazil left for the 2nd day.

 

As night was approaching, we went out for Chinese food at Amsterdam’s Chinatown. One thing I must say about Chinatown – and I’ve been to many of them all over the world… but, and I’m not sure how many people notice, but it always seems that Chinatown is in prime real estate areas… it’s always where lots of things are going on. In Amsterdam, almost everything is within walking distance so we did a lot of walking – I came prepared with lots of winter clothes. In the US, Americans have gotten to the convenience of driving… you might even see someone in a t-shirt in the dead of winter because they know they’re going to get into a car with heated seats… but I’ve never thought that was a good idea because if your car breaks down you’re in trouble. I also noticed while I was in Amsterdam that there weren’t any over-weight people… maybe it had to do with all the walking? And everyone walks super fast here. The native Dutch are all very tall, even the ladies.

 

The first full day went really well, but it was quite taxing due to the fact that we got off the plane in the early morning and worked all day with no rest. We were definitely looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

 

Day Two: Friday 12/10/2010

 

1) Continuation and completion of Day One goals

 

2) Benjamin Blalock discussion on Holland HQ Business processes.

 

3) Group meetings with Holland HQ Personnel and ICP Members

 

4) Initial seminars for ICP members

 

5) Explanation of History, Culture, Protocol, Etiquette, Rules, Rights, Privileges part I

 

The second day started out similar to the first – breakfast and in to the school. We completed the interviews with Italy and Brazil. The Italians were Mauro Gibin and Gianluca Giusto, both direct students and Instructors under Suhu Sergio. The Brazilian was Daniel Jaeger, a downline instructor-in-training under Suhu Sergio by way of Sifu Erik Alvarenga.

 

It was fortunate for us to have Suhu Sergio on these interviews: he’s fluent in English, Dutch, German, and Italian.

 

All the interviews went very smoothly and the final decision was to be made by Sunday. Meanwhile, Grand Master Lin began the physical training. This is part of the application process so that, together with the interview, applications have a better idea of what they are getting involved with so all doubts are removed before committing to the ICP. Grand Master Lin gave the applications 3 hours of hands-on training and instruction on the fundamentals of HKB system. Based on their feedback and the expressions on their faces, I could tell the participants were excited about the potential contained within the system. All doubts were removed.

 

Keep in mind, this group of people were all well experienced in Wing Chun and have many years of teaching under their belts/sashes. The good thing was that they were all excited and had an open mind, but due to the uniqueness of HKB, there were also some body karma challenges that will take time to change or re-program.

 

We concluded the second day with a group meeting with the HQ leaders, primarily focused on questions, issues, and concerns about introducing a little-known system to the larger martial arts community and the general public. We also discussed the challenges of introducing the new training requirements to an already established curriculum. These are all important concerns due to the fact that the HKB system is well received wherever we go, but so far it has been to established schools. The HQ group was very happy to know that the HKB system contains a well-rounded curriculum, including material from technical development to self-defense and fighting application, to self-improvement.

 

Day Three: Saturday 12/11/2010

 

1) Public workshop

 

2) Benjamin Blalock discussion on Holland HQ Business processes.

 

3) Explanation of History, Culture, Protocol, Etiquette, Rules, Rights, Privileges part II

 

The main focus of today was the public seminar. When we arrived at the school before the seminar started, we walked into a full house. Suhu Sergio’s school is not a small school but it was literally packed, wall to wall. Together with the ICP applicants, there were well over 100 participants in this 1st European Hek Ki Boen Seminar.

 

After the formal introduction of Grand Master Lin, I started out the seminar with a discussion of Wing Chun history and philosophy. Everyone was updated with the latest research from the VTM, and it was well received. Next was a short demonstration of HKB skills: Suhu Sergio started things off by demonstrating Siauw Lim Dou (aka Siu Lim Tau), then my Sihing, Benjamin, did the Im Yang Jiu, also known as the Flower Fist, and followed with Tim Kiauw, also known as Sinking the Bridge. I was up next with the De Sam Chian Po, or Low Three Battle Steps. Grand Master Lin finished the demonstration of advanced Hoat Keng power in performing Sam Chian Po.

 

After a short lunch break, we started the hands-on physical training. There’s one advantage to training in Wing Chun – due to economy of motion, we can still run a great workshop in tight space! After the physical training, we conducted a Q&A session. With both a philosophical background and actual experience, the participants were well educated and excited to ask questions about the system. The response was so overwhelming (in a good way) that we had to limit the number of questions in order to wrap up the seminar. Group photos followed and the wonderfully successful day concluded with dinner at a nice Tibetan restaurant. Based on my previous experience in Germany and the UK, and now the Netherlands, food is much more expensive in Europe than in the US. I think American’s complain too much – maybe the minority of Americans realize how good we truly have it and how easily it can slip away.

 

Grand Master Lin has this to say about the public seminar: “Today we just finished the first official HKB public seminar in Europe. I was happy to see how passionate they were and I was so glad to see how much they enjoy their experience in HKB. There were about 100 attendees and each one of them was really into it. I can clearly see and positively sure that HKB had found another home here in Amsterdam.”

 

Day Four: Sunday 12/12/2010

 

1) Explanation of History, Culture, Protocol, Etiquette, Rules, Rights, Privileges part III

 

2) Official ICP training with Grand Master Lin

 

After the public workshop and all the interviews were completed, official ICP training formally began on Sunday morning and lasted all day.

 

As of December 12, 2010, For the HKB Eng Chun discipleship, Grand Master Lin Xiang Fuk formally accepted 17 new candidates listed below as HKB Eng Chun Instructor Candidates Program (ICP) for the Europe Continent and the South America Continent.

 

Netherland HKB Instructor Candidates Program:

 

1. Harry Kwung Bong Fung (Future HKB Representative for Amsterdam)

 

2. Fabian Raymann (Future HKB Representative for Amsterdam)

 

3. Alex de Raaff (Future HKB Representative for Amsterdam)

 

4. Deniz Kara (Future HKB Representative for Haarlem)

 

5. Michael Morris (Future HKB Representative for Rotterdam)

 

6. Lai Wing Hau (Future HKB Representative for Amsterdam)

 

7. Robert Coztens (Future HKB Representative for Amsterdam)

 

Germany HKB Instructor Candidates Program:

 

8. Wolfgang Herges (Future HKB Representative for Osnabruck)

 

9. Alexander Smolenski (Future HKB Representative for Osnabruck)

 

10. Andreas Atzeni (Future HKB Representative for Osnabruck)

 

11. Malek Asad (Future HKB Representative for Osnabruck)

 

12. Annelene Sudau (Future HKB Representative for Osnabruck)

 

Italy HKB Instructor Candidates Program:

 

13. Mauro Gibin (Future HKB Representative for Savonna)

 

14. Gianluca Giusto ((Future HKB Representative for Savonna)

 

United Kingdom HKB Instructor Candidates Program:

 

15. Paul Lawrence Hawkes (Future HKB Representative for Crawley)

 

16. Alan Stuart (Future HKB Representative for Croydon)

 

Brazil HKB Instructor Candidate Program:

 

17. Daniel Jaeger (Future HKB Representative for Brazil)

 

The technical material covered on this first day of training came from the HKB Orientation Program, which includes basic and foundational material for the general public with no martial arts background. The HKB Eng Chun lineage contains a lot of old traditions and advanced knowledge. The only way to pass on the system with quality assurance is through proper teaching and training methods. We have a program for beginners to the system and the general public that don’t have any martial arts experience.

 

IPC training covers history, philosophy, mechanics, technical concepts, and application training with skill challenges. Even through this was a well-experienced group with many years of background in the martial arts in general and Wing Chun in particular, they were all very open-minded and eager to learn a new perspective on this great system. I can tell by their enthusiasm that they really enjoyed the system and could relate to the information they were learning and experiencing.

 

While the ICP members were training, Grand Master Lin also spent time with IP (Instructor Program) members, Suhu Benny Meng and Suhu Sergio Iadarola, to cover their second level instructor material.

 

We ended the day with a bit of site-seeing: including the town square and some of the famous Amsterdam land marks.

 

Day Five: Monday 12/13/2010

 

1) Explanation of History, Culture, Protocol, Etiquette, Rules, Rights, Privileges part III

 

2) Official ICP training with Grand Master Lin

 

Monday was another full day of ICP training, primarily focused on the first 8 modules of the System Approach. The ICP curriculum has been well-organized by Suhu Lin and is supported by the Grand Master Counsel in Indonesia. The Instructors will go through approximately 72 modules to complete the whole system through the first layer. This program is designed to give ICP members a view of the whole system and all the pieces first, rather than focus on just one aspect for years at a time. The idea is to give ICP members an overview so they know the breadth of the system first, then go into depth over time. Unfortunately, too many times the older generations seem to focus on a scarcity mindset, otherwise known as “protecting the rice bowl” where an Instructor will only teach as much as necessary to keep students and instructor-candidates involved and paying tuition. This is NOT the goal or methods used in the HKB ICP. Instead, the goal is to open up the totality of the system through a layered teaching format, which covers the entire system as quickly as an ICP members wishes to progress based on the skill and knowledge they demonstrate. Everyone is given the same opportunities with no favoritism or internal politics. Kung Fu, which means “skill and ability developed through hard work over time,” is truly developed through intense, personal effort to internalize and understand the material. In the ICP, the door stands open and it is up to each member to move forward based on his or her own efforts. This keeps the quality of the system high as only the most dedicated will make progress. However, everyone is encouraged to do and be their best, and all celebrate the skills accomplished by others. Truly, as we tell beginners, “If he can do it, if she can do it, if they can do it, I can do it!”

 

Personally, in addition to Grand Master Lin’s expertise in the martial arts and the treasure of Hek Ki Boen Eng Chun, my journey with this family has been enjoyable due to the lack of ego, hidden agendas, and politics within the HKB family and organization, and the emphasis on not playing politics with families outside the HKB lineage as well.

 

Day Six: Tuesday 12/14/2010

 

1) Explanation of History, Culture, Protocol, Etiquette, Rules, Rights, Privileges part III

 

2) Official ICP training with Grand Master Lin

 

3) Summary by Grand Master Lin

 

4) Summary by International Program Director Meng and Director Iadarola

 

Tuesday started with a familiar routine – wake up, wonderful breakfast, and head into the school, but Tuesday was also something special. Everyone knew it was the day of hard-core training, with less emphasis on learning new material and more on internalizing and experiencing the true spirit of Kung Fu: hard work! This special day’s training, comes from a tradition that started in the US HQ: on Sunday, Grand Master Lin trains with only the most dedicated and high-level students in a marathon four-to-six hour, non-stop drilling format. The only variation is the volume is in the mix of external and internal training, with 4 hours for external training followed by one-to-two hours of internal training such as Qigong. The European ICP members were excited to participate in the legendary ‘Sunday Training.’

 

Without going into any technical discussion, here’s a general outline from my experience:

 

A) Warm-Up (which isn’t really a warm-up, it’s designed to push you to your limits so that your whole body’s muscles are fatigued)

 

B) Once your muscles are complete fatigued, then we start tendon training

 

C) Once the tendons, muscle, and skin are trained, the last section is designed to train the bones by directly going with full force and explosive power. This last part really trains the mental and emotional parts of a warrior’s mindset because, after 3-4 hours of complete exhaustion, comes the most hard-core training and energy development: Kiauw Jiu (Bridging Hand) training. If you don’t have a tough mind, you won’t continue.

 

We had a great time together going through this intense experience. Some ICP members testified that they had never trained as hard before this experience. As usual, Grand Master Lin asked if they were sure they wanted to continue to learn the HKB system. Totally exhausted, and with sweat drilling out of every pore, the answer was a resounding “YES SIR!” from everyone.

 

We wrapped the day up with final lectures, a Q&A session, and review of all technical material. We spent the rest of the day collecting positive feedback.

 

Day Seven: Wednesday 12/15/2010

 

1) Travel to Hong Kong

 

a. Departing: 10:40

 

b. Arriving: 12/16/2010 @ 12:15 in Hong Kong

 

The last day in Amsterdam was simply preparing to head to the airport. Sihing Benjamin traveled back to the US while Grand Master Lin and I continued on to Hong Kong and China to prepare for the 4th International ICP workshop (the 2nd in Asia).

 

I want to take this opportunity to thank Suhu Sergio and his HQ Instructors, and especially Joanne Lam for the hospitality they showed to Grand Master Lin, Sihing Benjamin, and I on this first visit to Amsterdam.

 

Suhu Sergio and Joanne headed for Hong Kong on the same day, different flight. The plan was to meet up in Hong Kong the next day and prepare for another week of intense ICP training!

 

Day Eight: Thursday 12/16/2010

 

Grand Master Lin and I spend the day traveling and settling in, waiting for the Asian ICP members to arrive in Hong Kong: Lau Ka Lau (China), Cheng Chun Kit (China), Gerald Tur Raphael (Thailand), and Percival Rico (Philippines). We also had a new candidate, this time from Canada: Jordan Maunula from Thunder Bay, Ontario.

 

Day Nine: Friday 12/17/2010

 

As I started the interview process with Jordan, we officially began our first full day of training as well. The first day’s training lasted approximately 5 hours of physical training, and a few more hours of lecture and discussion. Then we went out to the city for dinner and more conversation.

 

Day Ten: Saturday 12/18/2010

 

Day Eleven: Sunday 12/19/2010

 

Days Nine, Ten, and Eleven were basically the same: ICP members training on their material, IP members training on our material, excellent food, great attitudes, laughter, and hard training. Hong Kong is the city of my birth and visiting always brings back happy memories, and personal favorites: street vendor food, soaking up the atmosphere, the noise and hustle-and-bustle of the big city. There were a few days that were quite cold for the Hong Kong standard, but it was nothing to notice compared to what we came from in Europe, or what we experience in Dayton, Ohio!

 

On a personal level, this Hong Kong trip had a special meaning for me: my skill level has reached a new, higher level thanks to Suhu Lin’s guidance.

 

Jordan completed the interview process, enjoyed his training and was impressed with Grand Master Lin, and was successful accepted into the ICP. I definitely noticed that this time around everyone in the Asian ICP contingent have improved significantly from earlier in the year.

 

Day Twelve: Monday 12/20/2010

 

Our plan for the day was to visit Suhu Sergio’s school in Shenzhen, China (info on Shenzhen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen). This was my first visit to his Chinese school and everyone kept teasing me about the best Dim Sum and Chau Siu (Barbecue Pork) was not in Hong Kung but in Shenzhen so I was very excited for this visit.

 

This was an exciting day, with a few interesting experiences along the way….

 

Originally, our whole group planned to train at the Shenzhen school but as we arrived at the border to China to get our visas, we found out that the visa rules have changed. A few of the members could not get visas to enter China so the team divided in half, with some staying in Hong Kong and the rest going into China. Since I hadn’t been to Shenzhen before, I went with the group to China.

 

As a group we all when back across the border to the Hong Kong side to say good afternoon, then returned back across the border into China a second time. As we were standing in line for the foreigners, a Chinese man was looking at my jacket with the HKB logos on it. He asked me, “Is there Hek Ki Boen Eng Chun in America?” because he saw me with a US Passport. I quickly replied, “Do you know anything about Wing Chun?” He said he knows about the Heaven and Earth Society, where the Five Flags came from and that he has heard about Wing Chun. He also knew about the Black Flag and Red Flag branches. I was quite surprised and excited. We continued our conversation and he told me quite a bit about the Red Flag, including that another name for the Red Flower Society (Hung Fa Wui) is also Iron Flower Society (Tit Fa Wui). Due to the border crossing, it was time for him to go up to customs and our conversation was interrupted. This was verification that people who know about the secret societies are actually quite familiar with Black Flag and Red Flag Wing Chun. It is unfortunate in the Wing Chun community that we have politics and people with hidden agendas trying to attack the Hek Ki Boen lineage by saying that there were no five flags connected to Shaolin in the secret societies. But information continues to open up on a more regular basis and supports the existences of just such a connection.

 

Lau Ka Lau and Cheng Chun Kit, the main instructors of the Shenzhen school, did a nice job showing us around. They took us to several nice restaurants while we were in town – the food was very authentic and super cheap! We had everything from authentic Cantonese cuisine to Northern Chinese influenced hot pots.

 

The Shenzhen school is beautifully equipped and decorated, and like their Suhu’s Netherland school, located downtown. As China is the birthplace of Wing Chun, we will definitely work hard to expand and bring this precious Wing Chun treasure back to China.

 

Day Thirteen: Tuesday 12/21/2010

 

We came back to Hong Kong around lunchtime on Tuesday. After a short break, we prepared for our final group training of the week. The weather was perfect so we decided to train outdoors.

 

Tuesday’s special HKB training was the legendary “Sunday Training,” a first for Jordan. Everyone else had experienced it in the past. As a special note, we did the Sam Chian Po more than 30 times in a row.

 

Tuesday night, we went out to celebrate our 2nd Asian ICP training at a local Japanese restaurant.

 

Day Fourteen: Wednesday 12/22/2010

 

On Wednesday, I returned to the US while Grand Master Lin continued on to Indonesia for a meeting with the Grand Master Council, led by the HKB Grand Masters.

 

Grand Master Lin had this to say about his trip to Indonesia “Today, I had a successful meeting and discussion with some of the HKB Grand Master Council, including Grand Master The Kang Hay as well as Grand Master Tio Tik Kwi. All of them are happy to hear about our international expansion, accomplished projects, and future plans”

 

Summary

 

To sum up this trip, in two weeks we interviewed and accepted 18 new ICP members, a total of 17 HKB Instructor Candidates that took place in Amsterdam from December 8th to 15th, 2010 and a total of 1 HKB Instructor Candidate that took place in Hong Kong from December 16th to 22nd, 2010. Also on this trip, a total of 25 IP/ICP members from China, the Philippines, Thailand, Canada, German, the Netherlands, Italy, Brazil and the United States came together to train at the instructor’s level.

 

These two weeks are an example of the amazing things that can happen when you combine a dedicated leader, working with open-minded follows, to learn, investigate, explore and experience a great system. I have a very strong feeling that this type of success will be happening more and more often for the Hek Ki Boen Eng Chun family on an international scale. In just a short two years, now HKB has expanded to 12 countries with more on the waiting list. We are currently focused on training, graduating, and certifying the first generation of HKB instructors so there is a growing waiting list for ICP 2. Countries on the waiting list include locations in the Middle East, Turkey, Denmark, Spain, Mexico, Africa, India, and Australia.

 

Looking towards the future, I am excited about the prospect of helping to grow and expand this great family and wonderful branch on the tree of Wing Chun. The 2011 training schedule for the HKB family is already shaping up to be a very exciting year!

 

We have already confirmed 16 IP/ICP training seminars/workshops all around the world for next year. The future looks very bright for the HKB family. Grand Master Lin will be putting together an official New Year’s Video Report in the month of January. The family continues to grow into a wonderful forest!

 

I wish a happy and healthy New Year to you and your family!

 

Regards,

Suhu Benny Meng

International Program Director

 

Maximum Efficiency through Occupying the Time, Becoming the Space, and Releasing Explosive Energy

 

(C) Hek Ki Boen Eng Chun / Black Flag Wing Chun

 

The post Sifu Lin Teaching Hek Ki Boen Eng Chun at IWKA Headquarter in Amsterdam December 2010, this is the 5th HKB Lesson Sergio Iadarola Received appeared first on Hek Ki Boen Wing Chun Online University.

 

Regards,

HKB Eng Chun AdminBlack Flag Wing Chun ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Go to this link to get FREE 7 Days HKB Introduction Seminars in your own country;

www.hekkiboen.com/inquiry/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Get your 6 Weeks UNLIMITED Black Flag Wing Chun Training for ONLY $39 in any of our Black Flag Wing Chun School. Get it NOW at www.blackflagwingchun.com #BlackFlagWingChun

U.S. Embassy Staff march in support of ending violence

   

Making a stand and joining efforts in celebrating 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign 2011 in Samoa, the Chargé d’Affaires Chad Berbert and staff of U.S. Embassy Apia joined more than 300 members of government ministries, diplomatic corps, international organizations and civil society groups in a march parade on November 25. The parade on Beach Road Apia transcended from the Police Headquarter to the Government Building at Matagialalua, where the marchers were met by the Prime Minister of Samoa, Hon. Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi.

 

samoa.usembassy.gov

 

facebook.com/samoa.usembassy

 

Let’s End the Cycle of Violence

Chad J. Berbert

 

Chargé d’Affaires

U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa

 

Violence against women and girls touches Samoa just as it does other nations. Gender-based violence is a global pandemic that cuts across all borders - ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, and religion. It can threaten women and girls at any point in their life- from female feticide and inadequate access to education and nutrition to child marriage, incest, and so-called "honor" killings. It can take the form of dowry -related murder or domestic violence, rape (including spousal rape), sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking in persons, or the neglect and ostracism of widows. One in three women around the world will experience some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime. In some countries that number is as high as 70 percent.

 

This year, we once again mark "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence." It is clear that the international community must offer up more than words to answer the call to free women and girls from violence. Whether it happens behind closed doors or as a public tactic of intimidation, whether down the street or on distant shores, violence against women and girls damages us all - men and women alike.

 

We must stand up to the impunity that too often leaves the egregious perpetrators unaccountable for their crimes. We must redress the low status of women and girls around the world that renders them undervalued and vulnerable. Further, we must support the inclusion of men and boys in addressing and preventing violence and changing gender attitudes. We must increase accountability and commitment by community and government leaders on this issue, and we must highlight and promote effective programs that are already successfully at work.

 

These 16 Days are a sobering reminder that gender-based violence cannot be treated as solely a women's issue - it is a profound challenge for the entire world. Gender-based violence is not just an affront to human rights and dignity – it adversely impacts the welfare of our communities. When women and girls are abused, businesses close, incomes shrink, families go hungry, and children grow up internalizing behavior that perpetuates the cycle of violence. There is no end to the economic and detrimental social and health costs that come along with this brutality.

 

This damage is passed on to the rest of the community as judicial, health and security services are strained. Violence effectively acts as a cancer on societies, causing enormous upheaval in the progress of social and economic development. Physical violence vastly increases women's risk for a range of serious conditions, including reproductive health problems, miscarriages, and sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV. There are also strong linkages to maternal mortality, as well as poor child health, and morbidity.

 

The Government of Samoa through the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development has initiated various awareness programs such as the Gender Based Violence Project and the Mothers and Daughters Project. In civil society there have been tremendous contributions from NGO groups such as Samoa Victims Support Group, Mapusaga o Aiga, Pan Pacific South East Asian Women Association (PPSEAWA) of Samoa, and Faataua le Ola to name a few. These groups have worked tirelessly to bring to light gender violence issues and to help educate the public, prevent abuse, and break the cycle of violence.

 

These 16 days offer an opportunity to renew the commitment to free women and girls from the nightmare of violence. Countries cannot progress when half their populations are marginalized and mistreated, and subjected to discrimination. When women and girls are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities in education, healthcare, employment, and political participation, they lift up their families, their communities, and their nations – and act as agents of change.

 

As Secretary Clinton recently noted, "Investing in the potential of the world's women and girls is one of the surest ways to achieve global economic progress, political stability, and greater prosperity for women – and men - the world over."

 

Let’s make the investment. Let’s end the cycle of violence, not just for these 16 days but for our future.

I could think of no better model that My Scene's Kennedy for the "Broadcast Yourself" series. She has the distinctive Barbie face, with the unsettling addition of bedroom eyes, and cherry red slightly parted lips. Combined with her girlish ponytails, she channels a myriad of forbidden fantasies and desires. I decided to use a different doll's body, which I couse for its suggestive pose and sheer red nightie.

 

She is using the built-in webcam on her little laptop to share images of herself with the world. She makes a digital slide show for her social networking pages using a song by The Pussycat Dolls. The lyrics of the song are about wanting fame and attention, and being called sexy by boys. She knows no better way to express herself that to take photos that expose her breasts. She is not thinking of the consequences of her actions, especially what kind of influence this could have on her little sister Ana.

  

read more at tiffanygholar.blogspot.com/2008/11/yasmin-kennedy-and-lol...

 

The Doll Project is a series of conceptual digital photographs that uses fashion dolls to embody the negative messages the media gives to young girls. Though it would not be fair to blame it all on Barbie, there have been many instances in which she has come dangerously close. I chose to use Barbie dolls because they are miniature mannequins, emblems of the fashion world writ small, a representation of our culture's impossible standards of beauty scaled to one sixth actual size. The little pink scale and How To Lose Weight book are both real Barbie accessories from the 1960s. They are recurring motifs in the pictures in the series, symbolizing the ongoing dissatisfaction many girls and women feel about their weight and body image. The dolls' names, Ana and Mia, are taken from internet neologisms coined by anorexic and bulimic girls who have formed online communities with the unfortunate purpose of encouraging each other in their disordered eating. With each passing era, Ana and Mia are younger and younger, and the physical ideal to which they aspire becomes more unattainable. They internalize the unrealistic expectations of a society that digitally manipulates images of women in fashion and beauty advertisements and value their own bodies only as objects for others to look at and desire.

 

Read more about the project here:

tiffanygholar.blogspot.com/2008/08/doll-project.html

 

Purchase prints here:

society6.com/TiffanyGholar

Open your account www.fw_pictures672FEBF.com/2B6D3C88E07FDC11606696D8584EF2... today in just minutes | View online www.fw_picturesDDAA55.com/D14F4CBEA291C3928FC7B09B5D22E27...

 

Youve already taken the first step toward your financial goals by starting your application for a TD Ameritrade account. Take the next step and start trade today.

 

Its quick and easy. And as a client, youll have access to the tools and resources you need to trade and invest with more confidence, including our top stocks picks:

 

There were 6,529 households out of which 12. It can then be printed as desired. Sinai's mountains and some of the north coastal cities such as Damietta, Baltim, Sidi Barrany, etc. Scarpetta thirty feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. Bagheera is portrayed as friendly, loyal, trustworthy, protective, and cunning, yet somewhat tricky. However, in the vast majority of cases this did not happen. Mixed School moved in on the 30 June 1945. M newspapers, 13 Moons, The McHenry County Living Magazine, or by going to www. Implicit Internalization of the Thin Ideal as a Predictor of Increases in Weight, Body Dissatisfaction, and Disordered Eating. Fashion and Contour Design course a leading design department for female underwear. There were 319,040 households of which 31. Domingo de Ochandiano was in charge of the accounting office and served as temporary treasurer. Pyrrhus and his successor as king of Epirus, repeated his father's adventure by conquering Macedonia. The vote totals were not announced, although Hamilton is believed to have won in a landslide. Underway training occupied the first four weeks while amphibious training took up the last three. The rink floor was also refinished with darker colors to provide better light reflection. NIKK aims at constituting a bridge between Nordic gender research and equality politics. Ancient theatre at argos from foot. Proud Association with Newtrends. However, it is possible to suffer from hay fever throughout the year. WPA investigators to the State to investigate the WPA. The Class 5BR was equipped with superheating at the time that it was reboilered with a Watson Standard boiler and reclassified. We have proved that PlanetSim reproduces the measures of these environments and is also efficient in its network implementation. Spaceman who desperately forces Jenna to sleep because she might die like one of his test rats. Hemoglobin, for comparison, has a Hill coefficient of usually 2. Sparton closed its London operations in 2009. CEO following his retirement in May 2008. He was released from hospital on July 8. June 2005, it won 5. She is later released on ten years probation, providing she does not leave California. Rome were written for all to peruse. In the first draft, the name became Stubek on the first few pages, until he finally settled on Rubek. Thank you for your support over the past nine years. Hazel Crest is located in zone E. Galoob released four series of Zbots from 1992 to 1994. Some authorities believe this system was a disc generator with a helium and argon carrier gas and potassium ionization seed. World Super Jockey Series. After the complaints, HBO chose to never air the film again on their service. At the beginning, the bank used its own resources almost entirely for both financial and banking operations. FAA indicating that the pilot's deficiency is of no concern. All pupils in a class can make contributions to the bulletin board. New York, began filing its first reports, as the old Associated Press Company of Illinois ceased its existence. GOC of 2nd Indian Airborne Division in 1945. European music production in the late 1980s. Some of those buried at Monfort played important roles in early local history. Desmond Wolfe the alter ego of Withnail from the cult film, Withnail and I. Now out of print. Church, also to other decretals of a later date, and possessed of the same authority. By agreement, any organisation, including schools and amateur dramatic groups, can now perform the musical. He and Stalker teamed up to free the Hawaiian girl from Cobra's clutches. Tyrone power ragtime 1. Mark Schoening returned to WCCI for the third time in March, 1982 as news and sports director. More macrophytes live on the bottom due to the increases in nutrients. Anderson wrestled Rob Van Dam to a double countout in another number one contender's match. Chris Wood's increasing problems with drug use and depression. Mother and Pinga have minor roles. Tickets are distributed for three sections, labeled Blue, Red, and Yellow. China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Netherlands, India, Borneo, the Philippines, etc. The email's contents were presented in a humorous manner regarding bilking the city. However, on January 6, 1942, under the command of Capt. Some of his bowling performances during this time were good though his batting was below par. Tony begins to panic when he learns of an eyewitness of a major crime. A list of famous Kannada scholars and their works. Europe, and what seem to be unearthly spirits. Therefore, the number of people who descended from Albanians in the country, must be higher than the figure shown. Masklin becomes overwhelmed by his task, but Grimma encourages him to lead the gnomes out of the store. The Association is actively involved in community work, particularly in the rural areas of South Africa. Creighton would be a good fit. XHTML is the best thing since sliced bread, when it comes to our fight for Web Standards. He has a major in physics and was 10 points away from getting a perfect score on the SAT. American Indian tribe clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff to a New York charity. Rea Towing Co Ltd, Liverpool. Cooper Union Building 1858. Institute of Mathematical Sciences logo. Dea resigned as Minister for Defence that evening. Pullo's affable manner, even when confronting adversaries, remains a constant source of levity. The completion date is 2014. A picture that I took at THON weekend with my camera. Common brick was often used on side walls, with hard surface English brick on the front. Central Institute of Plastics Engineering, established by the Act of Parliament shortly. Geordie Racer about these days. In 2003 she earned a master degree in clinical psychology. Digitus, in which he eventually became a partner. Assyrian rituals consist of many different types of elements that have shaped today's modern rituals for the past 3,000 years. Because of her father's musical connections and roots, music was always a big part of Blackman's life. You are too vast a concept for me. However, fate played a different role. Englishman had captained the Lions since 1930. Having helped create the Aeromachine he knew how it worked and finally wrangled its power. In 1953 Rocco returned to Triestina, but was sacked after 21 matchdays due to poor results. She is taken on a flight back to Los Angeles, to be interrogated at CTU headquarters. Masklin becomes overwhelmed by his task, but Grimma encourages him to lead the gnomes out of the store. Galois connection the lower adjoints is residuated with the residual being the upper adjoint. Cape Fear Memorial Bridge map. Newborns turn into the deceased, and diapers into the shroud that covers lifeless bodies. His lectures of the time reflect his Pantisocratic thinking on social relations and wealth. Biscet as well as writings from Dr. The song was performed live only in America for ten days on the Ghost In The Machine Tour.

 

Please do not reply to this email. Replies are not delivered to TD Ameritrade. Get in touch or visit the contact us www.fw_pictures49649.com/0FF5795BD90932F98FC76C9AB81E06F6... page on our website.

 

You have subscribed to our messages with fw_pictures@aspirepublicschools.org. See how your information is protected with our privacy statement www.fw_picturesE0FE96.com/390929A8C7561864376A1290BFB49F5... .

 

Unsubscribe www.fw_pictures3DF6BE.com/81DB5ECA31949E252FE4AFB97A2CFFE... from future advertising emails now.

 

Distributed by: TD Ameritrade, Inc., 210 South 104th Avenue, Omaha, NE 68154

U.S. Embassy Staff march in support of ending violence

   

Making a stand and joining efforts in celebrating 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign 2011 in Samoa, the Chargé d’Affaires Chad Berbert and staff of U.S. Embassy Apia joined more than 300 members of government ministries, diplomatic corps, international organizations and civil society groups in a march parade on November 25. The parade on Beach Road Apia transcended from the Police Headquarter to the Government Building at Matagialalua, where the marchers were met by the Prime Minister of Samoa, Hon. Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi.

 

samoa.usembassy.gov

 

facebook.com/samoa.usembassy

 

Let’s End the Cycle of Violence

Chad J. Berbert

 

Chargé d’Affaires

U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa

 

Violence against women and girls touches Samoa just as it does other nations. Gender-based violence is a global pandemic that cuts across all borders - ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, and religion. It can threaten women and girls at any point in their life- from female feticide and inadequate access to education and nutrition to child marriage, incest, and so-called "honor" killings. It can take the form of dowry -related murder or domestic violence, rape (including spousal rape), sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking in persons, or the neglect and ostracism of widows. One in three women around the world will experience some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime. In some countries that number is as high as 70 percent.

 

This year, we once again mark "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence." It is clear that the international community must offer up more than words to answer the call to free women and girls from violence. Whether it happens behind closed doors or as a public tactic of intimidation, whether down the street or on distant shores, violence against women and girls damages us all - men and women alike.

 

We must stand up to the impunity that too often leaves the egregious perpetrators unaccountable for their crimes. We must redress the low status of women and girls around the world that renders them undervalued and vulnerable. Further, we must support the inclusion of men and boys in addressing and preventing violence and changing gender attitudes. We must increase accountability and commitment by community and government leaders on this issue, and we must highlight and promote effective programs that are already successfully at work.

 

These 16 Days are a sobering reminder that gender-based violence cannot be treated as solely a women's issue - it is a profound challenge for the entire world. Gender-based violence is not just an affront to human rights and dignity – it adversely impacts the welfare of our communities. When women and girls are abused, businesses close, incomes shrink, families go hungry, and children grow up internalizing behavior that perpetuates the cycle of violence. There is no end to the economic and detrimental social and health costs that come along with this brutality.

 

This damage is passed on to the rest of the community as judicial, health and security services are strained. Violence effectively acts as a cancer on societies, causing enormous upheaval in the progress of social and economic development. Physical violence vastly increases women's risk for a range of serious conditions, including reproductive health problems, miscarriages, and sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV. There are also strong linkages to maternal mortality, as well as poor child health, and morbidity.

 

The Government of Samoa through the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development has initiated various awareness programs such as the Gender Based Violence Project and the Mothers and Daughters Project. In civil society there have been tremendous contributions from NGO groups such as Samoa Victims Support Group, Mapusaga o Aiga, Pan Pacific South East Asian Women Association (PPSEAWA) of Samoa, and Faataua le Ola to name a few. These groups have worked tirelessly to bring to light gender violence issues and to help educate the public, prevent abuse, and break the cycle of violence.

 

These 16 days offer an opportunity to renew the commitment to free women and girls from the nightmare of violence. Countries cannot progress when half their populations are marginalized and mistreated, and subjected to discrimination. When women and girls are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities in education, healthcare, employment, and political participation, they lift up their families, their communities, and their nations – and act as agents of change.

 

As Secretary Clinton recently noted, "Investing in the potential of the world's women and girls is one of the surest ways to achieve global economic progress, political stability, and greater prosperity for women – and men - the world over."

 

Let’s make the investment. Let’s end the cycle of violence, not just for these 16 days but for our future.

Just like anyone on social media, I like to fill my feed with happy images and highlights from my personal and professional life….but it’s time to start talking about the REAL stuff too!

Although it may seem like I have all of the happiness and confidence in the world if you look at my social media accounts, I have struggled with self esteem issues my entire life.

As a child, I grew up in an abusive environment filled with unresolved generational traumas where I was made to feel like I was the problem in myfamily, and unknowingly internalized that I as an individual was bad.

As with most abusive households, mine was an environment where nothing felt safe….even being myself. So, I began to develop a laundry list of unhealthy coping mechanisms, and a state of “survival mode” became my baseline as I entered my developmental years.

I felt so powerless under my father’s endless emotional abuse and violent outbursts at home, that I not only began to believe that type of behavior was normal, but also constantly felt the need to gain agency and assert my own will wherever possible. Which, obviously, did not go over well with my peers and teachers, and only caused me to more deeply internalize that I must be bad as I began to establish my sense of self outside of my family.

 

Like millions of other people with unresolved trauma, as things got worse for me emotionally, I turned to food for comfort, and quickly found myself significantly larger than almost everyone around me in elementary school. Something that my peers and father often made note of in cruel ways that hurt me so deeply and only further caused me to internalize that I must be bad.

Eventually, all of the shame that I felt during my childhood snowballed into deep depression and uncontrollable anxiety that I tried to heal with piles of prescriptions from different doctors that couldn’t seem to figure out what was “wrong” with me. When, in reality there was nothing “wrong” with me. I simply needed to find peace and be reminded that I AM GOOD.

 

Over the years - especially as I became an expectant mother at 17 years old and faced so much judgement for my choice to leave school in order to work while I was a pregnant - I found that excelling at my job served as an excellent surrogate for the validation I was seeking in my personal relationships, and I began to throw myself into my career, both as a way to support myself and my daughter as a single parent, and as a way to prove to myself through tangible means like paychecks and promotions that I was good.

It wasn’t until all of the unresolved trauma that I had been trying to bury with work began to manifest itself physically, that I finally accepted it was time to begin trying to show myself the love I knew I needed in order for my body to heal….even if the concept of being lovable still seemed totally forgeign to me, and I had no idea where to begin!

 

Abuse is a hard cycle to break, and self love is a hard lesson to learn. So, my path to healing was far from linear, or easy, but once I made that commitment to find and nurture the parts of myself that I loved, amazing things began to happen!

I’m pretty sure my friends and family thought I was losing my mind more than finding myself at first! But, as I began to explore myself as an energetic being and learn more about inner child and shadow work, I discovered that I wasn’t bad. I had just learned to protect (rather dysfunctionally) the vibrant, loving and vulnerable little Melissa who had learned that she needed to stay hidden in order to stay safe so long ago!

As anyone who has recovered from abuse can tell you, the hardest part about breaking the cycle is having no example of how to be any other way. My life had been filled with negativity for so long that I struggled to find myself in a peaceful situation even as I worked to heal myself.

As anyone who has recovered from abuse can also tell you, you just get used to it.

The pain and chaos becomes your baseline, and even when you are consciously in a state of growth away from that state of being, it’s all too easy to find yourself slipping back into relationships that make you feel most comfortable - even if they are simply toxic AF. Which is exactly what I was doing…..until I met Nate.

 

Before I met Nate, I had no idea what it felt like to be seen completely, and not only be accepted for who I was, but adored for it.

Most importantly though, Nate made me feel safe.

For the first time in my life, I was able to stop just surviving, and started thriving in ways I had forgotten that I was capable of.

It was like I had been trudging through mud my entire life, and was finally walking on solid ground for the first time when I finally learned to accept his love.

I began to see the entire world differently.

Instead of an endless stream of stressful situations and impending disasters, I started to see my life as promising and full of possibilities.

I began to see myself differently.

Instead of someone I felt I should be ashamed of, I started to see myself as someone kind and capable that I was proud to share with other people.

 

Once that shift occurred, I began to accomplish so many more things I felt that I could be proud of!

I learned to show myself the kindness I wish I had been shown, and found how freeing it can be to see the world through a less defensive lense.

I launched a successful private chef business out of nothing but my passion for food while I was still waiting tables and had nothing but my intuition to guide me.

I grew that little business into something that could provide a better life, and was finally able to start working for myself.

I built second, and third, businesses that provided me with more opportunities to do what I love, and a real sense that I was capable of so much good.

I started to be able to show up as my authentic self in social situations with less fear of being “seen” and judged for it.

But, even with all of those things to be proud of, I still held so much shame and anxiety around the idea that I was still somehow fundamentally bad at my core, and it was only a matter of time before I, and everyone else, would start to see it again.

 

The way that I had once used paychecks and promotions to provide myself with tangible evidence that I was good, I began to use images on social media as a tangible way for me to remind myself of all the positives when the negative self talk began to sneak into my mind.

At the time, I didn’t really think much into my motivation for posting about my life’s highlights on social media, because after all, it’s what everyone else does too and, let’s be honest - who doesn’t like getting likes?!

But when the pandemic hit last year and my ability to produce content that I felt I could use to prove to myself that I AM good was halted, it forced me to really examine the deeper emotional reasons that I felt it was so important for me to only share things that aligned with an image of positivity and success.

Being positive, and constantly focused on growth, is a huge part of who I am at my core - but it’s far from who I am all the time.

While I spent hours scrolling through social media during the early days of quarantine, I felt completely paralyzed as I watched other people post photos and videos of themselves functioning in ways I couldn’t even imagine in the moment.

It might sound silly, but when I felt the most lost in my emotions, just being able to just create and share a post about how to make a healthy smoothie made me feel like I was at least doing one thing I could be proud of, no matter how ashamed of myself I felt in the moment.

 

Thankfully, resilience seems to be my super power (dysfunctional as some of my survival mechanisms may be.) So, it didn’t take long for me to snap out of that depression and into that familiar feeling of “survival mode” that allowed me to begin working on ways to keep my businesses alive.

Being able to snap myself out of that paralyzing depression reminded me that I am a survivor and gave me the energy I needed to keep moving forward, but it also triggered all kinds of unhealthy coping mechanisms that I had worked so hard to move away from.

On the outside, I was pivoting like a pro. But, internally, it felt like my emotional state was falling to pieces.

Even though I knew that almost everyone else was struggling with their emotions as well, I just couldn’t bring myself to authentically share any of that darkness on social media.

I shared the smoothies.

I shared the healthy dinners.

I shared all of the milestones as I worked to rebuild my businesses.

Because that’s what made me feel safe.

 

What I didn’t share, was the insecurity.

What I didn't share, were the days that I could barely motivate myself to eat, let alone create something beautiful, or inspire anyone else to embrace taking care of themselves.

What I didn’t share, was the fear that everyone might see me at my worst and judge me for it.

What I didn’t share, was that I was really posting all of that for me, to prove to myself that I was still worthy of love - even though the only one who was even questioning that, was me!

Once I realized that I was using images on social media as a mask, I knew it was time to start healing those pieces of me that I still felt that I needed to hide.

I also knew that I wanted to share my story more authentically on social media somehow. But, I didn’t quite know how…..until I saw a post on Facebook from a local photographer working on a project about women sharing their authentic stories on social media, and it just spoke to me!

 

The concept was an unstyled shoot that showed the authentic me, accompanied by an essay to do the same - which seemed simple. But, it proved to be such a greater struggle than I had imagined!

The essay I could edit, and I’ve always loved to write, so I wasn’t worried about that. But, the photoshoot made me SO nervous!

Having grown up in a home where appearance and projecting the right image seemed to be of paramount importance, the idea of photos that might not portray me in the best light being published on the internet triggered all kinds of insecurities for me.

On the day of the shoot, I just chose to wear what was comfortable - the things I actually wear when I’m not trying to look a certain way.

I didn’t style my hair, or bother with more than my everyday makeup that consists of tinted moisturizer, a bit of bronzer and a little mascara.

If it were any regular day I would have felt perfectly comfortable with the way I looked.

In fact, I had made plans to meet a friend for dinner right after the shoot and felt great about the way I looked for that experience! But, the idea of being photographed like that, especially outside by the water where the wind would inevitably reveal angles of my face that I find unflattering, gave me anxiety for days before the shoot.

 

When I arrived for the shoot, I was nervous and far from the outgoing, confident Melissa that usually arrives at photoshoots when I’m styled perfectly and feeling my best.

As we walked through the quiet woods with the snow crunching beneath my boots, I realized that I felt so nervous because I had shown up to this photoshoot as the little Melissa that I had learned to hide and protect.

As we began to shoot, I started to feel sad, and strange that this would be the side of me captured on camera for this project. But, I quickly realized that it wasn’t sadness for the situation at hand that I was feeling.

It was sadness for little Melissa who had internalized that she wasn’t worth being seen just as she was.

Throughout the shoot, I couldn’t seem to shake that sense of sadness and I worried the photos would be ruined because of it.

But, when I saw the photos from the shoot a few weeks later, I realized that as we were walking and talking throughout the shoot, the images that Nikki captured began to tell a story.

The first photos looked posed and happy. But, of course they did. Because that’s my favorite mask, especially in front of the camera! So, I obviously felt fine about those being shared.

But, then there were some awkward attempts at me actually being natural in front of a camera. Which completely triggered all of the negative self-talk that typically leads to me taking great measures to avoid photos like that from ever seeing the light of day.

As we moved on, I could see the vulnerability in my eyes as I tried to let my guard down, and I felt so exposed knowing that side of myself would be shared.

Once we were by the water though, I started to see a sense of ease, and even strength emerging in the photos. Even if they weren’t my best angles and my hair was a mess, it looked like ME!

Not the styled, polished version of myself that I feel safest showing the world, but the authentic me that I have no problem sharing with the people I feel safe with.

 

Don’t get me wrong - I very authentically do LOVE to get dressed up, and genuinely think it’s fun to play with personal styling. It’s just fun for me! But, participating in this project has really helped me to reflect on how much I had been using my image as a mask to protect myself from negative self-talk.

As we all know now, wearing a mask can keep us safe, but it also prevents us from being fully seen.

Yes, taking off your mask can be a risk, just like letting other people see you completely can be a risk.

But, as we all know now after a year full of physical masking, nothing feels better than FINALLY being able to take off your mask and just breathe!

... for the kind words, the encouragement and most of all the understanding. I'm not sure many people really know what this year really did to me, but even in Canada (in a different time zone no less!) you recognized it.

 

I've internalized your wonderful message and agree with you 100%. I know you understand where I'm coming from and where I'm trying to end up. Know that nothing is going to hold me back and I do appreciate the love and support you've shown me even as you dealt with your own issues.

 

You're a shining example of what a real friend should be. Know that you're appreciated.

 

Love,

A

U.S. Embassy Staff march in support of ending violence

   

Making a stand and joining efforts in celebrating 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign 2011 in Samoa, the Chargé d’Affaires Chad Berbert and staff of U.S. Embassy Apia joined more than 300 members of government ministries, diplomatic corps, international organizations and civil society groups in a march parade on November 25. The parade on Beach Road Apia transcended from the Police Headquarter to the Government Building at Matagialalua, where the marchers were met by the Prime Minister of Samoa, Hon. Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi.

 

samoa.usembassy.gov

 

facebook.com/samoa.usembassy

 

Let’s End the Cycle of Violence

Chad J. Berbert

 

Chargé d’Affaires

U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa

 

Violence against women and girls touches Samoa just as it does other nations. Gender-based violence is a global pandemic that cuts across all borders - ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, and religion. It can threaten women and girls at any point in their life- from female feticide and inadequate access to education and nutrition to child marriage, incest, and so-called "honor" killings. It can take the form of dowry -related murder or domestic violence, rape (including spousal rape), sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking in persons, or the neglect and ostracism of widows. One in three women around the world will experience some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime. In some countries that number is as high as 70 percent.

 

This year, we once again mark "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence." It is clear that the international community must offer up more than words to answer the call to free women and girls from violence. Whether it happens behind closed doors or as a public tactic of intimidation, whether down the street or on distant shores, violence against women and girls damages us all - men and women alike.

 

We must stand up to the impunity that too often leaves the egregious perpetrators unaccountable for their crimes. We must redress the low status of women and girls around the world that renders them undervalued and vulnerable. Further, we must support the inclusion of men and boys in addressing and preventing violence and changing gender attitudes. We must increase accountability and commitment by community and government leaders on this issue, and we must highlight and promote effective programs that are already successfully at work.

 

These 16 Days are a sobering reminder that gender-based violence cannot be treated as solely a women's issue - it is a profound challenge for the entire world. Gender-based violence is not just an affront to human rights and dignity – it adversely impacts the welfare of our communities. When women and girls are abused, businesses close, incomes shrink, families go hungry, and children grow up internalizing behavior that perpetuates the cycle of violence. There is no end to the economic and detrimental social and health costs that come along with this brutality.

 

This damage is passed on to the rest of the community as judicial, health and security services are strained. Violence effectively acts as a cancer on societies, causing enormous upheaval in the progress of social and economic development. Physical violence vastly increases women's risk for a range of serious conditions, including reproductive health problems, miscarriages, and sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV. There are also strong linkages to maternal mortality, as well as poor child health, and morbidity.

 

The Government of Samoa through the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development has initiated various awareness programs such as the Gender Based Violence Project and the Mothers and Daughters Project. In civil society there have been tremendous contributions from NGO groups such as Samoa Victims Support Group, Mapusaga o Aiga, Pan Pacific South East Asian Women Association (PPSEAWA) of Samoa, and Faataua le Ola to name a few. These groups have worked tirelessly to bring to light gender violence issues and to help educate the public, prevent abuse, and break the cycle of violence.

 

These 16 days offer an opportunity to renew the commitment to free women and girls from the nightmare of violence. Countries cannot progress when half their populations are marginalized and mistreated, and subjected to discrimination. When women and girls are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities in education, healthcare, employment, and political participation, they lift up their families, their communities, and their nations – and act as agents of change.

 

As Secretary Clinton recently noted, "Investing in the potential of the world's women and girls is one of the surest ways to achieve global economic progress, political stability, and greater prosperity for women – and men - the world over."

 

Let’s make the investment. Let’s end the cycle of violence, not just for these 16 days but for our future.

She's internalized her costume too much I think! She's wearing her cheerleader jacket (University of the Philippines - Fighting Maroons)!

 

UP FIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHHT!

CONTACT: K. Alane Golden

Communications / S.M. Specialist, NARA, NW: Nak-Nu-Wit

503.224.1044, Xt. 264 / agolden@naranorthwest.org

 

The Portland, Oregon Based Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Inc., NARA NW, Will Join More than 1,000 National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day Celebrations’ Nationwide.

 

PORTLAND, OR — On Wednesday, May 9th, 2012, NARA, NW will host a Family Day celebration at Concordia University (2811 NE Holman Portland 97211) from 3 – 7pm, joining more than 1,000 communities and 115 federal programs and national organizations across the country participating in events, youth demonstrations, and social networking campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of children’s mental health. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day seeks to raise awareness about the importance of positive mental health from birth. This year, the Awareness Day national event will focus on young children from birth to 8 years old by emphasizing the need to build resilience in young children dealing with trauma.

 

For the past forty – two years, NARA, NW has provided culturally appropriate education, physical and mental health services and substance abuse treatment to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other vulnerable people in the greater Portland metro community. NARA’s unique wraparound child and family mental health services program, Nak Nu Wit, serves families, their young children and youth with mental health challenges, offering culturally-based services and supports needed to thrive at home, in school, and in the community. Research has shown when children as young as 18 months are exposed to traumatic life events, they can develop serious psychological problems later in life and have a greater risk for experiencing problems with substance abuse, depression and physical health. Integrating social-emotional and resilience-building skills into every environment can have a positive impact on a child's healthy development.

 

In conjunction with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and Concordia University, NARA, NW will celebrate Awareness Day locally by hosting a Family Day with the culturally-rooted theme: "Warriors Against Trauma", highlighting the strengths & adventure-based youth and family activities, to Elder storytelling, traditional drumming, dancing and singing, the event offers something for everyone - blending rich history and traditions of the past with modern day tribal urban culture. Attendees will enjoy complimentary face-painting, food and drinks, arts, crafts, ceremony, storytelling with Ed Edmo and a special performance by Emcee One and an array of mental health materials and resources aimed at reducing stigma. The event will focus attention on the importance of providing comprehensive, community-based mental health supports and services to enhance resilience and nurture strength-based skills in young children from birth. In the NARA community, Elders, family relations, community members, spiritual helpers and friends are invited to help the family. Nak Nu Wit is a Sahaptin phrase describing the program’s philosophy and mission:

 

“Everything / All things are being taken care of for the people, the people are the project, our responsibility, our work.” It is in this spirit that NARA welcomes all to attend this free event.

 

NARA, NW holds sacred the culture and traditions’ passed down from our ancestors and believes that when we recognize our “Warrior Self”, we can exhibit strength, without sacrificing tenderness. It is precisely because our ancestors called upon their inner warriors to be a source of strength to draw upon in times of great need that we exist today. The “Warriors Against Trauma” campaign honors our ancestors and asks today’s youth to thoughtfully deploy their “Warrior Spirits” to manifest as clarity, focus, determination, courage, constancy and an unflappable zest for life.

 

“Trauma Warriors” understand a true warrior views roadblocks as evolutionary opportunities, and isn't afraid to pursue a purpose to its finish – in the face of hardship, adversity, or strife. There is more than enough room in the existence of the warrior for softness and benevolence, and the warrior’s willingness to stand up for their beliefs can aid greatly in the healing process. As our youth strive to incorporate these ideals with today’s fast-paced world, they broaden their realities to internalize mindfulness while overcoming life’s challenges with an unwavering intensity of spirit. Can we get a W.A.T., W.A.T.?

 

"’Awareness Day is an opportunity for us to join with communities across the country in celebrating the positive impact we have on the lives of young people when we’re able to integrate culturally relevant positive mental health into every environment,’ says Terry Ellis, Child and Family Services Clinical Manager. ‘When we focus on building resilience and coping skills in young children from birth, especially if they have experienced a traumatic event, we can help young children, youth, and their families thrive.’"

 

Data released on May 3, 2011, by SAMHSA indicates that an estimated 26% of American children will witness, or experience a traumatic event, before the age of 4 years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 60% of American adults say they endured abuse, or other difficult family circumstances, during childhood. Research has shown exposure to traumatic events early in life can have many negative effects throughout childhood and adolescence, into adulthood. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study found a strong relationship between traumatic events experienced in childhood as reported in adulthood, and chronic physical illness such as heart disease, and mental health problems which includes depression.

 

The annual financial burden to society of childhood abuse and trauma is estimated to be $103 billion. NARA, NW is committed not only to treatment aimed at reducing this financial burden, but, strives to address historical trauma through culturally-based mental health services. Through NARA’s child and family mental health programs, our families and youth are treated by nationally recognized trauma experts who aim to decrease the prevalence of exposure to traumatic events among children and youth to eliminate intergenerational trauma, the problems trauma causes, and offer available treatments that can help children and youth recover through resilience. It is a great honor to act as liaisons, standing side-by-side with family and community members helping ensure the complete mental health and well-being our youth so they may continue the traditions passed down from elders with strength, honor and dignity.

 

12 year old Mechoopta Maidu tribal member and Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day contributing artist reflects upon what a Warrior Against Trauma means to him, “I have very bad dreams that wake me up at night. With help from Amber, I learned to call my Warrior to make the bad things that happen to me when I sleep go away. He protects me by throwing a tomahawk at the bad things, making them disappear and helping me sleep better.” Michael, NARA Nak Nu Wit client.

 

For more information, join the conversation on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter @NCMHAD

 

2012 National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day: "Warriors Against Trauma" Pledge: I Pledge to be Safe, Kind, Helpful and Healthy.

 

CONTACT: K. Alane Golden

Com./S.M. Specialist, NARA, NW: Nak-Nu-Wit

503.224. 1044, extension 264

agolden@naranorthwest.org

 

The Portland, Oregon Based Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Inc., NARA NW, Will Join More than 1,000 National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day Celebrations’ Nationwide.

 

PORTLAND, OR — On Wednesday, May 9th, 2012, NARA, NW will host a Family Day celebration at Concordia University (2811 NE Holman Portland 97211) from 3 – 7pm, joining more than 1,000 communities and 115 federal programs and national organizations across the country participating in events, youth demonstrations, and social networking campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of children’s mental health. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day seeks to raise awareness about the importance of positive mental health from birth. This year, the Awareness Day national event will focus on young children from birth to 8 years old by emphasizing the need to build resilience in young children dealing with trauma.

 

For the past forty – two years, NARA, NW has provided culturally appropriate education, physical and mental health services and substance abuse treatment to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other vulnerable people in the greater Portland metro community. NARA’s unique wraparound child and family mental health services program, Nak Nu Wit, serves families, their young children and youth with mental health challenges, offering culturally-based services and supports needed to thrive at home, in school, and in the community. Research has shown when children as young as 18 months are exposed to traumatic life events, they can develop serious psychological problems later in life and have a greater risk for experiencing problems with substance abuse, depression and physical health. Integrating social-emotional and resilience-building skills into every environment can have a positive impact on a child's healthy development.

 

In conjunction with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and Concordia University, NARA, NW will celebrate Awareness Day locally by hosting a Family Day with the culturally-rooted theme: "Warriors Against Trauma", highlighting the strengths & adventure-based youth and family activities, to Elder storytelling, traditional drumming, dancing and singing, the event offers something for everyone - blending rich history and traditions of the past with modern day tribal urban culture. Attendees will enjoy complimentary face-painting, food and drinks, arts, crafts, ceremony, storytelling with Ed Edmo and a special performance by Emcee One and an array of mental health materials and resources aimed at reducing stigma. The event will focus attention on the importance of providing comprehensive, community-based mental health supports and services to enhance resilience and nurture strength-based skills in young children from birth. In the NARA community, Elders, family relations, community members, spiritual helpers and friends are invited to help the family. Nak Nu Wit is a Sahaptin phrase describing the program’s philosophy and mission:

 

“Everything / All things are being taken care of for the people, the people are the project, our responsibility, our work.” It is in this spirit that NARA welcomes all to attend this free event.

 

NARA, NW holds sacred the culture and traditions’ passed down from our ancestors and believes that when we recognize our “Warrior Self”, we can exhibit strength, without sacrificing tenderness. It is precisely because our ancestors called upon their inner warriors to be a source of strength to draw upon in times of great need that we exist today. The “Warriors Against Trauma” campaign honors our ancestors and asks today’s youth to thoughtfully deploy their “Warrior Spirits” to manifest as clarity, focus, determination, courage, constancy and an unflappable zest for life.

 

“Trauma Warriors” understand a true warrior views roadblocks as evolutionary opportunities, and isn't afraid to pursue a purpose to its finish – in the face of hardship, adversity, or strife. There is more than enough room in the existence of the warrior for softness and benevolence, and the warrior’s willingness to stand up for their beliefs can aid greatly in the healing process. As our youth strive to incorporate these ideals with today’s fast-paced world, they broaden their realities to internalize mindfulness while overcoming life’s challenges with an unwavering intensity of spirit. Can we get a W.A.T., W.A.T.?

 

"’Awareness Day is an opportunity for us to join with communities across the country in celebrating the positive impact we have on the lives of young people when we’re able to integrate culturally relevant positive mental health into every environment,’ says Terry Ellis, Child and Family Services Clinical Manager. ‘When we focus on building resilience and coping skills in young children from birth, especially if they have experienced a traumatic event, we can help young children, youth, and their families thrive.’"

 

Data released on May 3, 2011, by SAMHSA indicates that an estimated 26% of American children will witness, or experience a traumatic event, before the age of 4 years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 60% of American adults say they endured abuse, or other difficult family circumstances, during childhood. Research has shown exposure to traumatic events early in life can have many negative effects throughout childhood and adolescence, into adulthood. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study found a strong relationship between traumatic events experienced in childhood as reported in adulthood, and chronic physical illness such as heart disease, and mental health problems which includes depression.

 

The annual financial burden to society of childhood abuse and trauma is estimated to be $103 billion. NARA, NW is committed not only to treatment aimed at reducing this financial burden, but, strives to address historical trauma through culturally-based mental health services. Through NARA’s child and family mental health programs, our families and youth are treated by nationally recognized trauma experts who aim to decrease the prevalence of exposure to traumatic events among children and youth to eliminate intergenerational trauma, the problems trauma causes, and offer available treatments that can help children and youth recover through resilience. It is a great honor to act as liaisons, standing side-by-side with family and community members helping ensure the complete mental health and well being our youth so they may continue the traditions passed down from elders with strength, honor and dignity.

 

12 year old Mechoopta Maidu tribal member and Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day contributing artist reflects upon what a Warrior Against Trauma means to him, “I have very bad dreams that wake me up at night. With help from Amber, I learned to call my Warrior to make the bad things that happen to me when I sleep go away. He protects me by throwing a tomahawk at the bad things, making them disappear and helping me sleep better.” Michael, NARA Nak Nu Wit client.

 

For more information, join the conversation on Facebook: www.facebook.com//NARANCMHAD and Follow us on Twitter @NCMHAD

Read more about the project here:

tiffanygholar.blogspot.com/2008/08/doll-project.html

 

The Doll Project is a series of conceptual digital photographs that uses fashion dolls to embody the negative messages the media gives to young girls. Though it would not be fair to blame it all on Barbie, there have been many instances in which she has come dangerously close. I chose to use Barbie dolls because they are miniature mannequins, emblems of the fashion world writ small, a representation of our culture's impossible standards of beauty scaled to one sixth actual size. The little pink scale and How To Lose Weight book are both real Barbie accessories from the 1960s. They are recurring motifs in the pictures in the series, symbolizing the ongoing dissatisfaction many girls and women feel about their weight and body image. The dolls' names, Ana and Mia, are taken from internet neologisms coined by anorexic and bulimic girls who have formed online communities with the unfortunate purpose of encouraging each other in their disordered eating. With each passing era, Ana and Mia are younger and younger, and the physical ideal to which they aspire becomes more unattainable. They internalize the unrealistic expectations of a society that digitally manipulates images of women in fashion and beauty advertisements and value their own bodies only as objects for others to look at and desire.

 

Read more about the project here:

tiffanygholar.blogspot.com/2008/08/doll-project.html

 

Purchase prints here:

society6.com/TiffanyGholar

 

Buy the book on Amazon and Etsy.

Bro. Brian Graham, a member of Kerr Lodge, is a very active Shriner. He visited a regular Masonic lodge in Mexico City and was made an honourary life member and gifted with the apron and sash that is shown in this photograph. I was impressed to say the least.

 

The Masonic Blazing Star, not to be confused with the 5-Pointed Star, is one of the most important symbols of Freemasonry.

 

Masonic Blazing Star

 

It makes its appearance in several of the Degrees.

 

The information, below is attributed to Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, 1929 in which Masonic scholars define the Masonic Star of Freemasonry. Hutchinson said: “It is the first and most exalted object that demands our attention in the Lodge.”

 

Like many other Freemason symbols, it undoubtedly derives this importance, first, from the repeated use that is made of it as a Masonic emblem; and second, from its great antiquity, as a symbol derived from older systems.

 

Part of the Furniture of the Lodge: In the earliest monitors, immediately after the revival of 1717, the Masonic Blazing Star is not mentioned, but it was not long before it was introduced. In the instructions of 1735, it is detailed as a part of the furniture of a Lodge, with the explanation that the “Mosaic Pavement is the Ground Floor of the Lodge, the Blazing Star, the Centre, and the Indented Tarsel, the Border round about it!”

 

Star of Bethlehem: In the lectures credited to Dunckerley and adopted by the Grand Lodge, the Blazing Star was said to represent “the star which led the wise men to Bethlehem, proclaiming to mankind the nativity of the Son of God, and here conducting our spiritual progress to the Author of our redemption.”

 

3 Ornaments of the Lodge: In the Prestonian lecture, the Masonic Blazing Star, with the Mosaic Pavement and the Tesselated Border, are called the Ornaments of the Lodge.

 

The Prestonian lecture goes on to explain:

 

Moses on the Mount: “The Masonic Blazing Star, or glory in the center, reminds us of that awful period when the Almighty delivered the two tables of stone, containing the 10 commandments to His faithful servant, Moses on Mount Sinai, when the rays of His divine glory shone so bright that none could behold it without fear and trembling.

 

It also reminds us of the omnipresence of the Almighty, overshadowing us with His divine love, and dispensing His blessings amongst us; and by its being placed in the center, it further reminds us, that wherever we may be assembled together, God is in the midst of us, seeing our actions, and observing the secret intents and movements of our hearts.”

 

Divine Providence

 

Star of Bethlehem: In the lectures taught by Webb, and very generally adopted in the United States, the Masonic Blazing Star is said to be “commemorative of the star which appeared to guide the wise men of the East to the place of our Saviour’s nativity,” and it is subsequently explained as hieroglyphically representing Divine Providence.

 

Prudence: In Hutchinson’s system, the Masonic Blazing Star is considered a symbol of Prudence…for Prudence is the rule of all Virtues; Prudence is the path which leads to every degree of propriety; Prudence is the channel where self-approbation flows for ever; she leads us forth to worthy actions, and as a Blazing Star, enlighteneth us through the dreary and darksome paths of this life”…(Spirit of Masonry, edition of 1775, Lecture 5, Page 111).

 

Back to Divine Providence: But the commemorative allusion to the Star of Bethlehem seeming to some to be objectionable, from its peculiar application to the Christian religion, at the revision of the lectures made in 1843 by the Baltimore Convention, this explanation was omitted and the allusion to Divine Providence, alone, was retained.

 

The Creator: The Freemasons on the Continent of Europe, speaking of the symbol, say: “It is no matter whether the figure of which the Masonic Blazing Star forms the center be a square, triangle, or circle, it still represents the sacred name of God, as an universal spirit who enlivens our hearts, who purifies our reason, who increases our knowledge, and who makes us wiser and better men.”

 

In the lectures revised by Doctor Hemming and adopted by the Grand Lodge of England at the Union in 1813, and now constituting the approved lectures of that jurisdiction, we find the following definition:

 

The Sun: “The Blazing Star, or glory in the center, refers us to the sun, which enlightens the earth with its refulgent rays, dispensing its blessings to mankind at large and giving light and life to all things here below.”

 

Hence, we find that at various times the Masonic Blazing Star has been declared to be a symbol of

 

1. Divine Providence

2. The Star of Bethlehem

3. Prudence

4. Beauty

5. The Sun

 

Before we can attempt to decide upon these various opinion, and adopt the true signification, it is necessary to extend our investigations into the antiquity of the emblem, and inquire what was the meaning given to it by the nations who first made it a symbol.

 

Sabaism, or worship of the stars, was one of the earliest deviations from the true system of religion. One of its causes was the universally established doctrine among the idolatrous nations of antiquity, that each star was animated by the soul of a hero god, who had once dwelt incarnate upon earth. Hence, in the hieroglyphical system, the star denoted a god.

 

The Prophet Amos: To this signification, allusion is made by the prophet Amos (Amos 5:26), when he says to the Israelites, while reproaching them for their idolatrous habits: “But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chium, your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.”

 

Egyptian Idolatry: This idolatry was early learned by the Israelites from their Egyptian taskmasters; and so unwilling were they to abandon it, that Moses found it necessary strictly to forbid the worship of anything “that is in heaven above”; notwithstanding which we find the Jews repeatedly committing the sin which had been so expressly forbidden.

Saturn was the star to whose worship they were more particularly addicted under the names of Moloch and Chium, (already mentioned in the passage quoted from Amos).

 

The planet Saturn was worshiped under the names of Moloch, Malcolm or Milcom by the Ammonites, the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians, and under that of Chium by the Israelites in the desert.

 

Saturn was worshiped among the Egyptians under the name of Raiphan, or as it is called in the Septuagint, Remphan. (For more about the Septuagint, see Freemasonry and the Bible.

 

(Acts 7:43): St. Stephen, quoting the passage of Amos, says: “ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god, Remphan”. (also see Acts 7:43).

 

Hale, in his Analysis of Chronology, says in alluding to the above passage:

 

“There is no direct evidence that the Israelites worshiped the Dog-Star in the wilderness, except this passage; but the indirect is very strong, drawn from the general prohibition of the worship of the sun, moon and stars, to which they must have been prone.

 

This was peculiarly an Egyptian idolatry, where the Dog-Star was worshiped, as notifying by his heliacal rising, or emersion from the sun’s rays, the regular commencement of the periodical inundation of the Nile.

 

The Israelite sculptures at the cemetery of Kibroth-Hattaavah, or graves of lust, in the neighborhood of Sinai, remarkably abound in hieroglyphics of the Dog-Star, represented as a human figure with a dog’s head.

 

There is express evidence that they sacrificed to the Dog-Star. In Josiah’s description of idolatry, where the Syriac Mazaloth (improperly termed planets) denotes the Dog-Star; in Arabic, Mazaroth.”

 

Notwithstanding a few discrepancies that may have occurred in the Masonic lectures, as arranged at various periods and by different authorities, the concurrent testimony of the ancient religions, and the hieroglyphic language, prove that the star was a symbol of God.

 

It was so used by the prophets of old in their metaphorical style, and it has so been generally adopted by Masonic instructors.

 

Masonic Blazing Star...As A Christian Emblem

 

The application of the Masonic Blazing Star as an emblem of the Savior has been made by those writers who give a Christian explanation of our emblems, and to the Christian Freemason, such an application will not be objectionable.

 

But those who desire to refrain from anything that may tend to impair the tolerance of our system, will be disposed to embrace a more universal explanation, which may be received alike by all the disciples of the Order, whatever may be their peculiar religious views.

 

Such persons will rather accept the expression of Doctor Oliver, who, though much disposed to give a Christian character to our Institution, says in his Symbol of Glory, page 292, “The Great Architect of the Universe is therefore symbolized in Freemasonry by the Blazing Star, as the Herald of our salvation.”

 

Waved Pointed Star: John Guillim, the editor in 1610 of the book A Display of Heraldrie, says: “All stars should be made with waved points, because our eyes tremble at beholding them.”

 

In the early Tracing Board, the star with five straight points is superimposed upon another of five waving points.

 

But the latter (five waving–points) star has now been abandoned and we have in the representations of the present day, the incongruous (to Mackey) symbol of a Masonic blazing star with five straight points.

 

Letter G: In the center of the star, there was always placed the letter “G”, which like the Hebrew word, “Yod”, was a recognized symbol of God, and thus the symbolic reference of the Blazing Star to Divine Providence is greatly strengthened.

 

Credit and full acknowledgement is given to Albert Mackey, Mackey’s Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Volume 1, Page 138 and 139, 1929, for the above information.

 

Simon-Sez: Whew! That was a long one. Sorry about that, but I felt that you deserved as full a history and the biblical relevance from the different points of view of Masonic scholars throughout history about the Masonic Blazing Star instead of a simple and trite answer that our Masonic Blazing Star is the symbol of Deity.

 

Freemasonry is fascinating, but rarely is it that simple. ...And Fat-Free?...only on this website. :)

 

I would also be remiss not to mention that within the Scottish Rite degrees there are similar but slightly different explanations of the Masonic Blazing Star within that organization, but that is beyond the scope of the Basic Freemasonry I attempt to share with you, here.

 

For those of you who are interested, the "Fat-Free" version of the above information is below.

 

The Masonic Blazing star is not only a Masonic symbol, but an ancient and historic one.

 

From early days, Man has always looked to the heavens for guidance.

 

The Sun God: The sun is also a star. We find that early man worshipped the Sun as a god. In Egypt, we find that stars were also chosen as symbols of earthly heroes who once lived on earth and whose spirits were immortalized in the form of a tangible (something you can see, feel or touch) object.

 

The Dog Star: Egyptian idols and gravestone contain representations of Sirius, the Dog Star. The Dog Star is actually 2 stars called Sirius A and Sirius B.

 

Due to the fact that the Dog Star is 8.6 light years away, without a telescope of the magnitudinal category of the Hubble Telescope, using the naked eye, we see it as one star.

 

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky because it is approximately twice the size of our sun.

 

Heliacal Rising: The Dog Star has a heliacal rising. When the Dog Star would first become visible on the Eastern horizon approximately once a year, ancient peoples made note of it. A heliacal rising is when the star becomes visible upon the Eastern horizon at dawn, travels through the sky and "sets" in the West, much like our sun. Our sun and moon are visible for approximately 12 hours each day.

 

However, depending upon a star's placement in the sky, a star with a heliacal rising may appear on the Eastern horizon and slowly "rise" higher in the sky each day, until it "sets" in the West several months later.

 

Egyptian Calendar: The ancient Egyptians based their calendar on the heliacal rising of Sirius and devised a method of telling the time at night based on the heliacal risings of 36 stars called decan stars (one for each 10° segment of the 360° circle of the zodiac/calendar).

 

Agricultural Calendar: The Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the ancient Greeks also used the heliacal risings of various stars for the timing of agricultural activities.

 

Seafaring Travelers used the stars as a guide, much as we use a map, today.

 

Star of Bethlehem: For Christians, it represents God's light, ...the star of Bethlehem which guided the Wise Men to the manger whereupon they found the Son of God.

 

It is for that reason that the star resides at the pinnacle (the very top) of every Christmas tree, as a symbol of God's guidance.

 

Astronomy and Astrology: The ancients believed that the stars in the sky were connected to earthly events. Miracles were routinely associated with the birth of important people.

 

Hence, the study of astronomy and astrology were conceived. While many people scoff at these beliefs, today; we must also be cognizant of the deeply held belief in this system.

 

Halley's Comet: For those people who reject this theory completely, we must not forget that famous Freemason, Mark Twain, American author and humorist, who was born in 1835, two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halley's Comet. In 1909, he is quoted as having said:

 

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it." His comment was prophetic. He died in April of 1910, (age 75) one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

 

From ancient civilizations to modern man,...our Masonic Blazing Star is a symbol of Divine Providence...the symbol of Deity which represents:

 

Omnipresence (the fact that the Creator is always present in our lives)

 

Omniscience (the fact that the Creator both sees and knows everything about us, including our thoughts and the secrets of our hearts)

 

...And throughout history, the Masonic Blazing Star is an ancient emblem of faith which shines for each of us, no matter which specific religion we embrace.

 

Seven Stars: In the Tracing-Board of the Seventeenth Degree, or Knight of the East and West, there is the representation of a man clothed in a white robe, with a golden girdle about his waist, and around his extended right hand are seven stars. This is an apocalyptic degree, and seven stars representing the perfect number symbolize the true messengers of the Christ. "And he had in his right hand seven stars"… — ( Revelations 1:16 )

 

Square and Compasses:

www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/16447115765/stats/

 

Five Pointed Star: Masonic usage

 

The Zelator ritual of S.R.I.C.F. briefly introduces the symbolism of the Pentagram on the Altar to the new postulant:

 

The Five-pointed Star reminds us of the five points of felicity, which are to walk with, to intercede for, to love, to assist, and to pray for our Brethren, so as to be united with them in heart and mind.

 

As an emblem of the five points of felicity, the Pentagram reminds us of our duties towards our brethren of the Rose and Cross throughout the world.

 

Further in the ritual the subject of number symbolism is addressed, and the number five is explained as

 

the emblem of Health and Safety; it is also denominated the Occult number; the Pentagram was a famous talisman; it represents Spirit and the four elements.

 

The reference to health and safety is interesting as it is reminiscent of the Greek hygeia discussed earlier.

 

The Pentagram may be seen as symbolic of the entire course of initiation in the S.R.I.C.F. First Order, as the elemental degrees are easily associated with the elemental points of the Pentagram; while initiation into the Second Order represents the quintessence or fifth, top-most point of the Star. In this way, the candidate of the S.R.I.C.F. symbolically builds up the power of the pentagram internally as they progress through and assimilate the lessons of the degrees. Entrance to the Second Order would then represent Adepthood, as the initiate has established the flaming star within their very heart of hearts and embodies the very essence of the Pentagram, and is a living embodiment of the Stone of the Philosophers.

 

Within the Craft degrees, the figure of the Pentagram may also be seen in the image of the 5 rayed Blazing Star. According to Albert Pike, the pentagram is synonymous with the Blazing Star of Masonic Lodges:

 

The Blazing Star in our Lodges, we have already said, represents Sirius, Anubis, or Mercury, Guardian and Guide of Souls. Our Ancient English brethren also considered it an emblem of the Sun. In the old Lectures they said: ‘The Blazing Star or Glory in the centre refers us to that Grand Luminary the Sun, which enlightens the Earth, and by its genial influence dispenses blessings to mankind. It is also said in those lectures to be an emblem of Prudence. The word Prudentia means, in its original and fullest signification, Foresight: and accordingly the Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience, or the All-Seeing Eye, which to the Ancients was the Sun.[vi]

 

He further associates this star with the “Divine Energy, manifested as Light, creating the Universe.”[vii]

 

The Masonic scholar Rex Hutchins asserts that the Pentagram

 

is the symbol of the Divine in man… The five-pointed star with a single point upward represents the Divine. It also symbolizes man for its five points allude to the five senses, the five members (head, arms and legs) and his five fingers on each hand, which signify the tokens that distinguish Masons.

 

Furthermore he writes that this figure

 

is the symbol of the Microcosm, the universe where humans dwell. Since the pentagon which encloses the pentagram may be formed by connecting the five points of the human body, for many centuries the symbol was also used to represent humanity in general.

 

Within this symbol then is a representation of humanity, and our Divine role in the Universe as co-creators of eternity.

 

In addition to being a central altar piece in our Rosicrucian Temples, and the Blazing Star of the Craft Lodges, the Pentagram appears as an ensign in some of the High Degrees and rites. For example, it is central on the apron of the 28th Degree of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite, Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept. In discussing the symbol of the pentagram in the lecture of this degree, Pike writes in Morals & Dogma that

 

in certain undertakings [the Pentagram] cannot be dispensed with. It is what is termed the Kabalistic pentacle… This carries with it the power of commanding the spirits of the elements.

 

A central lesson of this highly Kabalistic and Alchemical degree is that there is no death, only change. The Pentagram, symbol of humanity as the microcosm is an apt representation of this wisdom which, to one who has internalized it, may have that contempt for death which is expressed in the line from 1 Corinthians – “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

In the same lecture, Pike alludes to the true meaning of this radiant symbol:

 

When the masters in Alchemy say that it needs but little time and expense to accomplish the works of Science. When they affirm, above all, that but a single vessel is necessary, when they speak of the Great and Single furnace, which all can use, which is within the reach of all the world, and which men possess without knowing it, they allude to the philosophical and moral Alchemy. In fact, a strong and determined will can, in a little while, attain complete independence; and we all possess that chemical instrument, the great and single athanor or furnace, which serves to separate the subtle from the gross, and the fixed from the volatile. This instrument, complete as the world, and accurate as the mathematics themselves, is designated by the Sages under the emblem of the Pentagram or Star with five points, the absolute sign of human intelligence.

 

It may be said that the Pentagram represents the power of the Divine Will, as manifested in Humanity, to effect conscious change. As conscious participants with the Divine Will, humanity is in the unique position of being able to be co-creators with the Divine.

 

Our sisters of the Eastern Star utilize a Pentagram as their primary symbol. Interestingly, their usage places the pentagram “upside down,” with two points on top and a single point facing down. According to esoteric tradition, this usage indicates the “evil” forces of darkness. The occult authority Eliphas Levi writes in Transcendental Magic:

 

The Pentagram with two horns in the ascendant represents Satan, or the goat of the Sabbath, and with the single horn in the ascendant is the sign of the Savior. It is the figure of the human body with the four members and a point representing the head; a human figure head downward naturally represents the demon, that is, intellectual subversion, disorder and folly.

 

As to whether the author of the Easter Star rituals was aware of these qualities when designing the emblem of the rite is most likely unknown. A contemporary member of the Eastern Star has informed us that the explanation of the symbol she received attributes the two points as facing towards the east, providing an unobstructed channel from the altar to the Eastern dais, as well as creating a confined center or “chamber” in the east that is formed between the two extended points and the dais. All Masons would be familiar with the idea of having the path from the Altar to the East clear at all times, and this may in fact be the most probable reason for the design.

Chitra, also spelled as Citra, is an Indian genre of art that includes painting, sketch and any art form of delineation. The earliest mention of the term Chitra in the context of painting or picture is found in some of the ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism and Pali texts of Buddhism

 

NOMENCLATURE

Chitra (IAST: Citra, चित्र) is a Sanskrit word that appears in the Vedic texts such as hymns 1.71.1 and 6.65.2 of the Rigveda. There, and other texts such as Vajasaneyi Samhita, Taittiriya Samhita, Satapatha Brahmana and Tandya Brahmana, Chitra means "excellent, clear, bright, colored, anything brightly colored that strikes the eye, brilliantly ornamented, extraordinary that evokes wonder". In the Mahabharata and the Harivamsa, it means "picture, sktech, dilineation", and is presented as a genre of kala (arts). Many texts generally dated to the post-4th-century BCE period, use the term Chitra in the sense of painting, and Chitrakara as a painter. For example, the Sanskrit grammarian Panini in verse 3.2.21 of his Astadhyayi highlights the word chitrakara in this sense. Halls and public spaces to display paintings are called chitrasalas, and the earliest known mention of these are found in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

 

A few Indian regional texts such as Kasyapa silpa refer to painting by others words. For example, abhasa – which literally means "semblance, shining forth", is used in Kasyapa-shilpa to mean as a broader category of painting, of which chitra is one of three types. The verses in section 4.4 of the Kasyapa-silpa state that there are three types of images – those which are immovable (walls, floor, terracota, stucco), movable, and those which are both movable-immovable (stone, wood, gems).[5] In each of these three, states Kasyapa-shipa, are three classes of expression – ardhacitra, citra, and citra-abhasa. Ardhacitra is an art form where a high relief is combined with painting and parts of the body is not seen (it appears to be emerging out of the canvas). The Citra is the form of picture artwork where the whole is represented with or without integrating a relief. Citrabhasha is the form where an image is represented on a canvas or wall with colors (painting). However, states Commaraswamy, the word Abhasa has other meanings depending on the context. For example, in Hindu texts on philosophy, it implies the "field of objective experience" in the sense of the intellectual image internalized by a person during a reading of a subject (such as an epic, tale or fiction), or one during a meditative spiritual experience.

 

In some Buddhist and Hindu texts on methods to prepare a manuscript (palm leaf) or a composition on a cloth, the terms lekhya and alekhya are also used in the context of a chitra. More specifically, alekhya is the space left while writing a manuscript leaf or cloth, where the artist aims to add a picture or painting to illustrate the text.

 

HISTORY

The earliest explicit reference to painting in an Indian text is found in verse 4.2 of the Maitri Upanishad where it uses the phrase citrabhittir or "like a painted wall". The Indian art of painting is also mention in a number of Buddhist Pali suttas, but with the modified spelling of Citta. This term is found in the context of either a painting, or painter, or painted-hall (citta-gara) in Majjhima Nikaya 1.127, Samyutta Nikaya 2.101 and 3.152, Vinaya 4.289 and others. Among the Jain texts, it is mentioned in Book 2 of the Acaranga Sutra as it explains that Jaina monk should not indulge in the pleasures of watching a painting.

 

The Kamasutra, broadly accepted to have been complete by about the 4th-century CE, recommends that the young man should surprise the girl he courts with gifts of color boxes and painted scrolls. The Viddhasalabhanjika – another Hindu kama- and kavya–text uses chitra-simile in verse 1.16, as "pictures painted by the god of love, with the brush of the mind and the canvas of the heart".

 

The nature of a chitra (painting), how the viewer's mind projects a two dimensional artwork into a three dimensional representation, is used by Asanga in Mahayana Sutralamkara – a 3rd to 5th-century Sanskrit text of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, to explain "non-existent imagination" as follows:

 

Just as in a picture painted according to rules, there are neither projections nor depressions and yet we see it in three dimensions, so in the non-existent imagination there is no phenomenal differentiation, and yet we behold it.

— Mahayana Sutralamkara 13.7, Translated in French by Sylvain Levi

 

According to Yoko Taniguchi and Michiyo Mori, the art of painting the caves at the c. 6th-century Buddhas of Bamiyan site in Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban Muslims in the late 1990s, were likely introduced to this region from India along with the literature on early Buddhism.

 

TEXTS

There are many important dedicated Indian treatises on chitra. Some of these are chapters within a larger encyclopedia-like text. These include:

 

Chitrasutras, chapters 35–43 within the Hindu text Vishnudharmottara Purana (the standard, and oft referred to text in the Indian tradition)

Chitralaksana of Nagnajit (a classic on classical painting, 5th-century CE or earlier making it the oldest known text on Indian painting; but the Sanskrit version has been lost, only version available is in Tibet and it states that it is a translation of a Sanskrit text)

Samarangana Sutradhara (mostly architecture treatise, contains a large section on paintings)

Aparajitaprccha (mostly architecture treatise, contains a large section on paintings)

Manasollasa (an encyclopedia, contains chapters on paintings)

Abhilashitartha chinatamani

Sivatatva ratnakara

Chitra Kaladruma

Silpa ratna

Narada silpa

Sarasvati silpa

Prajapati silpa

Kasyapa silpa

 

These and other texts on chitra not only discuss the theory and practice of painting, some of them include discussions on how to become a painter, the diversity and the impact of a chitra on viewers, of aesthetics, how the art of painting relates to other arts (kala), methods of preparing the canvas or wall, methods and recipes to make color pigments. For example, the 10th-century Chitra Kaladruma presents recipe for making red color paint from the resin of lac insects. Other colors for the historic frescoes found in India, such as those in the Ajanta Caves, were obtained from nature. They mention earthy and mineral (inorganic) colorants such as yellow and red ochre, orpigment, green celadonite and ultramarine blue (lapis lazuli). The use of organic colorants prepared per a recipe in these texts have been confirmed through residue analysis and modern chromatographic techniques.

 

THEORY

The Indian concepts of painting are described in a range of texts called the shilpa shastras. These typically begin by attributing this art to divine sources such as Vishvakarma and ancient rishis (sages) such as Narayana and Nagnajit, weaving some mythology, highlighting chitra as a means to express ideas and beauty along with other universal aspects, then proceed to discuss the theory and practice of painting, sketching and other related arts. Manuscripts of many these texts are found in India, while some are known to be lost but are found outside India such as in Tibet and Nepal. Among these are the Citrasutras in the 6th-century Visnudharmottara Purana manuscripts discovered in India, and the Citralaksana manuscript discovered in Tibet (lost in India). This theory include early Indian ideas on how to prepare a canvas or substrate, measurement, proportion, stance, color, shade, projection, the painting's interaction with light, the viewer, how to captivate the mind, and other ideas.

 

According to the historic Indian tradition, a successful and impactful painting and painter requires a knowledge of the subject – either mythology or real life, as well as a keen sense of observation and knowledge of nature, human behavior, dance, music, song and other arts. For example, section 3.2 of Visnudharmottara Purana discusses these requirements and the contextual knowledge needed in chitra and the artist who produces it. The Chitrasutras in the Vishnudharmottara Purana state that the sculpture and painting arts are related, with the phrase "as in Natya, so in Citra". This relationship links them in rasa (aesthetics) and as forms of expression.

 

THE PAINTING

A chitra is a form of expression and communication. According to Aparajitaprccha – a 12th-century text on arts and architecture, just like the water reflects the moon, a chitra reflects the world. It is a rupa (form) of how the painter sees or what the painter wants the viewer to observe or feel or experience.

 

A good painting is one that is alive, breathing, draws in and affects the viewer. It captivates the minds of viewers, despite their diversity. Installed in a sala (hall or room), it enlivens the space.

 

The ornaments of a painting are its lines, shading, decoration and colors, states the 6th-century Visnudharmottara Purana. It states that there are eight gunas (merits, features) of a chitra that the artist must focus on: posture; proportion; the use of the plumb line; charm; detail (how much and where); verisimilitude; kshaya (loss, foreshortening) and; vrddhi (gain). Among the dosas (demerits, faults) of a painting and related arts, states Chitrasutra, are lines that are weak or thick, absence of variety, errors in scale (oversized eyes, lips, cheeks), inconsistency across the canvas, deviations from the rules of proportion, improper posture or sentiment, and non-merging of colors.

 

LIMBS OF THE PAINTING

Two historical sets called "chitra anga", or "limbs of painting" are found in Indian texts. According to the Samarangana Sutradhara – an 11th-century Sanskrit text on Hindu architecture and arts, a painting has eight limbs:

 

Vartika – manufacture of brushes

Bhumibandhana – preparation of base, plaster, canvas

Rekhakarma – sketching

Varnakarma – coloring

Vartanakarma – shading

lekhakarana – outlining

Dvikakarma – second and final lining

Lepyakarma – final coating

 

According to Yashodhara's Jayamangala, a Sanskrit commentary on Kamasutra, there are sadanga (six limbs)[note 5] in the art of alekhyam and chitra (drawing and painting):

 

Rupa-bhedah, or form distinction; this requires a knowledge of characteristic marks, diversity, manifested forms that distinguish states of something in the same genus/class

Pramanani, or measure; requires knowledge of measurement and proportion rules (talamana)

Bhava yojanam, or emotion and its joining with other parts of the painting; requires understanding and representing the mood of the subject

Lavanya yojanam, or rasa, charm; requires understanding and representing the inner qualities of the subject

Sadrsyam, or resemblance; requires knowledge of visual correspondence across the canvas

Varnika-bhanga or color-pigment-analysis; requires knowledge how colors distribute on the canvas and how they visually impact the viewer.

 

These six limbs are arranged stylistically in two ways. First as a set of compound (Rupa-bhedah and Varnika-bhanda), a set of joining (middle two yojnam), and a set of single words (Pramanani and Sadrsyam). Second, states Victor Mair, the six limbs in this Hindu text are paired in a set of differentiation skills (first two), then a pair of aesthetic skills, and finally a pair of technical skills. These limbs parallel the 12th-century Six principles of Chinese painting of Xie He. {refn|group=note|The Hua Chi of Teng Ch'un, a 12th-century Chinese text, mentions the Buddhist temple of Nalanda with frescoes about the Buddha painted inside. It states that the Indian Buddhas look different from those painted by Chinese, as the Indian paintings have Buddha with larger eyes, their ears are curiously stretched and the Buddhas have their right shoulder bare. It then states that the artists first make a drawing of the picture, then paint a vermilion or gold colored base. It also mentions the use of ox-glue and a gum produced from peach trees and willow juice, with the artists preferring the latter. According to Coomaraswamy, the ox-glue in the Indian context mentioned in the Chinese text is probably the same as the recipe found in the Sanskrit text Silparatna, one where the base medium is produced from boiling buffalo skin in milk, followed by drying and blending process.

 

The six limbs in Jayamangala likely reflect the earliest and more established Hindu tradition for chitra. This is supported by the Chitrasutras found in the Vishnudharmottara Purana. They explicitly mention pramanani and lavanya as key elements of a painting, as well as discuss the other four of the six limbs in other sutras. The Chitrasutra chapters are likely from about the 4th or 5th-century. Numerous other Indian texts touch upon the elements or aspects of a chitra. For example, the Aparajitaprccha states that the essential elements of a painting are: citrabhumi (background), the rekha (lines, sketch), the varna (color), the vartana (shading), the bhusana (decoration) and the rasa (aesthetic experience).

 

THE PAINTER

The painter (chitrakara, rupakara) must master the fundamentals of measurement and proportions, state the historic chitra texts of India. According to these historic texts, the expert painter masters the skills in measurement, characteristics of subjects, attributes, form, relative proportion, ornament and beauty, states Isabella Nardi – a scholar known for her studies on chitra text and traditions of India. According to the Chitrasutras, a skilled painter needs practice, and is one who is able to paint neck, hands, feet, ears of living beings without ornamentation, as well as paint water waves, flames, smoke, and garments as they get affected by the speed of wind. He paints all types of scenes, ranging from dharma, artha and kama. A painter observes, then remembers, repeating this process till his memory has all the details he needs to paint, states Silparatna. According to Sivatattva Ratnakara, he is well versed in sketching, astute with measurements, skilled in outlining (hastalekha), competent with colors, and ready to diligently mix and combine colors to create his chitra. The painter is a creative person, with an inner sense of rasa (aesthetics).

 

THE VIEWER

The painter should consider the diversity of viewers, states the Indian tradition of chitra. The experts and critics with much experience with paintings study the lines, shading and aesthetics, the uninitiated visitors and children enjoy the vibrancy of colors, while women tend to be attracted to the ornamentation of form and the emotions. A successful painter tends to captivate a variety of minds. A painter should remember that the visual and aesthetic impact of a painting triggers different responses in different audiences.

 

The Silparatna – a Sanskrit text on the arts, states that the painting should reflect its intended place and purpose. A theme suitable for a palace or gateway is different from that in a temple or the walls of a home. Scenes of wars, misery, death and suffering are not suitable paintings within homes, but these can be important in a chitrasala (museum with paintings). Auspicious paintings with beautiful colors such as those that cheer and enliven a room are better for homes, states Silparatna.

 

PRACITICE

According to the art historian Percy Brown, the painting tradition in India is ancient and the persuasive evidence are the oldest known murals at the Jogimara caves. The mention of chitra and related terms in the pre-Buddhist Vedic era texts, the chitra tradition is much older. It is very likely, states Brown, the pre-Buddhist structures had paintings in them. However, the primary building material in ancient India was wood, the colors were organic materials and natural pigments, which when combined with the tropical weather in India would naturally cause the painting to fade, damage and degrade over the centuries. It is not surprising, therefore, that sample paintings and historic evidence for chitra practice are unusual. The few notable surviving examples of chitra are found hidden in caves, where they would be naturally preserved a bit better, longer and would be somewhat protected from the destructive effects of wind, dust, water and biological processes.

Some notable, major surviving examples of historic paintings include:

 

Murals at Jogimara cave (eight panels of murals, with a Brahmi inscription, 2nd or 1st century BCE, Hindu), oldest known ceiling paintings in India in remote Ramgarh hills of northern Chhattisgarh, below on wall of this cave is a Brahmi inscription in Magadhi language about a girl named Devadasi and a boy named Devadina (either they were lovers and wrote a love-graffiti per one translation, or they were partners who together converted natural caves here into a theatre with painted walls per another translation)

 

Mural at Sitabhinji Group of Rock Shelters (c. 400 CE Ravanachhaya mural with an inscription, near a Shiva temple in remote Odisha, a non-religious painting), the oldest surviving example of a tempera painting in eastern states of India

 

Murals at Ajanta caves (Jataka tales, Buddhist), 5th-century CE, Maharashtra

Murals at Badami Cave Temples (Hindu), 6th-century CE, Karnataka (secular paintings along with one of the earliest known painting of a Hindu legend about Shiva and Parvati inside a Vaishnava cave)

Murals at Bagh caves (Hallisalasya dance, Buddhist or Hindu), Madhya Pradesh

Murals at Ellora caves (Flying vidyadharas, Jain), Maharashtra

Frescoes at Sittanavasal cave (Nature scenes likely representing places of Tirthankara sermons, Jain), Tamil Nadu

Frescoes at Thirunadhikkara cave temple (Flowers and a woman, likely a scene of puja offering to Ganesha, another of Vishnu, Hindu), Travancore region, Kerala-Tamil Nadu

Paintings at the Brihadisvara temple (Dancer, Hindu), Tamil Nadu

Manuscript paintings (numerous states such as Gujarat, Kashmir, Kerala, Odisha, Assam; also Nepal, Tibet; Buddhist, Jain, Hindu

Vijayanagara temples (Hindu), Karnataka

Chidambaram temple (Hindu), Tamil Nadu

Chitrachavadi (Hindu, a choultry–mandapa near Madurai with Ramayana frescoes)

Pahari paintings (Hindu), Himachal Pradesh and nearby regions

Rajput paintings (Hindu), Rajasthan

Deccan paintings (Hindu, Jain)

Kerala paintings (Hindu)

Telangana paintings (Hindu)

Mughal paintings (Indo-Islamic)

 

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Kalamkari (Hindu)

Pattas (Jain, Hindu)

 

WIKIPEDIA

U.S. Embassy Staff march in support of ending violence

   

Making a stand and joining efforts in celebrating 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign 2011 in Samoa, the Chargé d’Affaires Chad Berbert and staff of U.S. Embassy Apia joined more than 300 members of government ministries, diplomatic corps, international organizations and civil society groups in a march parade on November 25. The parade on Beach Road Apia transcended from the Police Headquarter to the Government Building at Matagialalua, where the marchers were met by the Prime Minister of Samoa, Hon. Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi.

 

samoa.usembassy.gov

 

facebook.com/samoa.usembassy

 

Let’s End the Cycle of Violence

Chad J. Berbert

 

Chargé d’Affaires

U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa

 

Violence against women and girls touches Samoa just as it does other nations. Gender-based violence is a global pandemic that cuts across all borders - ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, and religion. It can threaten women and girls at any point in their life- from female feticide and inadequate access to education and nutrition to child marriage, incest, and so-called "honor" killings. It can take the form of dowry -related murder or domestic violence, rape (including spousal rape), sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking in persons, or the neglect and ostracism of widows. One in three women around the world will experience some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime. In some countries that number is as high as 70 percent.

 

This year, we once again mark "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence." It is clear that the international community must offer up more than words to answer the call to free women and girls from violence. Whether it happens behind closed doors or as a public tactic of intimidation, whether down the street or on distant shores, violence against women and girls damages us all - men and women alike.

 

We must stand up to the impunity that too often leaves the egregious perpetrators unaccountable for their crimes. We must redress the low status of women and girls around the world that renders them undervalued and vulnerable. Further, we must support the inclusion of men and boys in addressing and preventing violence and changing gender attitudes. We must increase accountability and commitment by community and government leaders on this issue, and we must highlight and promote effective programs that are already successfully at work.

 

These 16 Days are a sobering reminder that gender-based violence cannot be treated as solely a women's issue - it is a profound challenge for the entire world. Gender-based violence is not just an affront to human rights and dignity – it adversely impacts the welfare of our communities. When women and girls are abused, businesses close, incomes shrink, families go hungry, and children grow up internalizing behavior that perpetuates the cycle of violence. There is no end to the economic and detrimental social and health costs that come along with this brutality.

 

This damage is passed on to the rest of the community as judicial, health and security services are strained. Violence effectively acts as a cancer on societies, causing enormous upheaval in the progress of social and economic development. Physical violence vastly increases women's risk for a range of serious conditions, including reproductive health problems, miscarriages, and sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV. There are also strong linkages to maternal mortality, as well as poor child health, and morbidity.

 

The Government of Samoa through the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development has initiated various awareness programs such as the Gender Based Violence Project and the Mothers and Daughters Project. In civil society there have been tremendous contributions from NGO groups such as Samoa Victims Support Group, Mapusaga o Aiga, Pan Pacific South East Asian Women Association (PPSEAWA) of Samoa, and Faataua le Ola to name a few. These groups have worked tirelessly to bring to light gender violence issues and to help educate the public, prevent abuse, and break the cycle of violence.

 

These 16 days offer an opportunity to renew the commitment to free women and girls from the nightmare of violence. Countries cannot progress when half their populations are marginalized and mistreated, and subjected to discrimination. When women and girls are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities in education, healthcare, employment, and political participation, they lift up their families, their communities, and their nations – and act as agents of change.

 

As Secretary Clinton recently noted, "Investing in the potential of the world's women and girls is one of the surest ways to achieve global economic progress, political stability, and greater prosperity for women – and men - the world over."

 

Let’s make the investment. Let’s end the cycle of violence, not just for these 16 days but for our future.

2005-2007

80" x 96"

Colored pencil, graphite, acrylic on wood panels

 

Collection:

Crocker Art Museum

 

(Robert Cremean: Metaphor and Process, the video, may be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgrxW8xSvrA)

 

Hereafter is a transcription of the handwritten text on the diptych above:

 

ECCE HOMO

 

This is as it is. Behold me. I am you, a reflection in the artist’s eye; and as I see you, myself, I reflect on our condition. Ecce homo. I do not wash my hands of responsibility. I embrace it. It is not for me to judge. I am a simple craftsman of recordation and as an artist I am pledged to record what I see. This is neither excuse nor evasion; rather, a simple statement of isness. I accept full responsibility for my reflection. This is what I see. If what I see is viewed as judgement, this is a reflection of the beholder. As I accept responsibility as artist, I expect the beholder to accept his. We meet only on this plane of shared reflection. Only here does intimacy occur free of interpretation, cultural catechism and correctness. If you insist on encumbering yourself in the armor of cultural correctness, your performance here will be clumsy and predictable. In a sense, sensuality on this plane is similar to sexual intimidation. Your ability to perform and to penetrate lies within your bourn of possibility. If you predetermine my limitations by your reflection, our mirror will remain opaque, your image obscured, and your subservience to cultural and historical prudery reified. I have the disinterest of a whore. It is not my business to guarantee gratification. I can only service the possibility. Consider the compass of our sexuality; setting the due male North, the due female South, the due homosexual male West, and the due female homosexual East creates a 360° horizon of infinite possibility. Although the magnetic North has always determined the direction of human entelechy, that entelechy has a 360º choice of direction. Due North is no longer viable. That way lies oblivion. This is as it is. The diameter stretches from due East to due West, a horizontal demarcation between life and death. The arrow points South, a 180º shift of our vision of expectation. We must establish now an entirely new triangle of possibility, a state of being shorn of masculine hegemony, an oppositeness of all that was and all that was always expected to be. All of masculine entelechy has become toxic. The entire hemisphere must be abandoned. As we continue to explore the sphere of human possibility, the Northern Hemisphere with its redundancies and repetitious predictability is barren of resource, hackneyed and clichéd. It has been exploited ad nauseum and further indulgence threatens continuance. If we, the explorers of human entelechy, were to turn 180º to confront possibility rather than repeat, what new discoveries and alternatives might be presented. What new metaphors might flower in the nourishing soil of oppositeness...through technology, masculine necessity is redundant; only his metaphors continue to control the human condition. War, religion, commerce, history, tradition—this gestalt of metaphors which make masculine human reality is no longer viable. We must turn our back on death and face a new world for survival and fecundity. What the Masculine has made finite, the feminine must make possible. The alternative is repetition unto oblivion. A 90º shift to the West on the horizon of possibility is now credible; the homosexual male can replace the heterosexual masculine in all ways including, through technology, reproduction of the species. It is the unexplored West that pulls tight the severing horizon line on the vertical axis of Masculine redundancy. The remaining poles of diversity which describe the human compass present an infinity of possibilities for the survival of all species and the nourishing planet. As the technology of death advances beyond the stasis of masculine gestalt, humankind can no longer tolerate the immutability of mankind’s Isness. If we continue to define ourselves in the mirror of masculine redundancy, our extinction is assured. The severing horizontal diameter of the East/West homosexual horizon offers the human condition the rationale for redrawing the maps of possibility. Through decapitation of the necrophagous North, an entire frontier of new metaphors based on other gendered realities would be explored. Ecce Homo. As I view the simplistic vertical axis of staff and distaff, the linear reality of repetition is entropy, a metastasis of boredom and predictability of repeat. Inevitability is the saddest of life’s consequences. 8/6/45. I am an artist at the end of history. In this final concentric ripple of linear time, the confusion is noisome, an explosion of masculine frustration and hypocrisy. Man’s surrogate, god, is everywhere, an excuse for slaughter, pillage and destruction. Art is a frantic recordation of nihility to support a culture our culture-makers can no longer create. Information and intimidation have unnerved personal response and we eat what we are fed and live in fantasy and fabrication pretending to a culture that does not exist. We claim that what Is is not and what is not Is. Our drift into entropy and stasis has created an illusion of movement as the groove of repetition digs deeper and deeper our blind addiction to a necrophagous gestalt. Situated on the East/West homosexual horizon, I view the possibility for human extension by the light of a setting sun. I cast my glance at what has been, not as historical accumulation but as evidence of what might be because it always was. The compass of human Isness is dominated by the magnetic arrow of a due masculine imperative. The arrow now points toward death. The pointer must be demagnetized so that the compass can be turned without the constant insistence of a dogmatic actuality. The monocularity of this actuality has erased the horizon line and replaced it with a single and simplistic vanishing point. Infinity. This ignorance of the sensual curvature of the sphere of human possibility makes phobic the human condition and toxic our repetitive diminution into entropy. As an artist, I find perspective to be the most complex and challenging of the many disciplines of Making. What one sees, how one sees, and how one relates that which is seen, is an artist’s statement. Further, perspective is for the artist a monocular though ever-shifting viewpoint of a multidimensional universe, an examination of interior and exterior landscapes as seen through the dual silvered mirror of self. The way he sees, his so-called “style,” is an admission of limitation rather than an academic virtue of cultural and historical value. For me, the most fascinating discovery was the difference between Greek and Roman perspective wherein Roman or scientific perspective establishes the vanishing points on the horizon whereas Greek perspective implants the vanishing point within the mind of the viewer. The philosophical difference is explosive, separating the masculine hemisphere from the feminine along the homosexual diameter of the sphere of comprehension. By placing the vanishing point within the bourn of the viewer, humankind’s exploration of Isness is internalized and enlarged through a demystification of the masculine horizon. Objects and concepts are adjusted to the expanding interior universe as they pass through the lens of human understanding. It is the inner world of human possibility that incubates reality rather than obdurate dogmas and rote that inculcate fear of self-discovery through the imposition of unquestionable answers. Metaphors and concepts are diminished as they pass through the lens; their viability, objectified. They assume human proportion in terms of the reflecting curvature of the sphere. It is the viewer who commands the 360º horizon of human possibility from the infinity of centered entelechy. Because objects and concepts enlarge as they recede from the eyes of the viewer, Greek perspective, by placing the vanishing point within the bourn of human perception, affirms humanity’s absoluteness in terms of unique Isness. Ecce Humanitas. By spanning the horizon across dual lobes of perception, the focus of human need is internalized according to interpretation. By this process is reality created and communicated through metaphor. I embrace chaos. My desire to shear the magnetic needle of cultural/historical imperium from the compass of possibility fuels my enterprise. Every viewer has choice. Response cannot be forced regardless of critical intervention or cultural intimidation. Your being here with me on this plane at this time commits us to nothing. If, by chance, esthetic orgasm occurs, your release confirms your existence on this plane. I will never know you as I have never known you. I am an object if conveyance, nothing more. This plane confirms your existence—not mine. Only in the act of making do I exist. Only on this plane do I convey. The orgasm is yours. You have created me in your desire for creation. And on this plane, you are the creator. You are creating yourself. And this is Art. And the creating of Art is the essence of human Isness. It is the pinnacle of our reality. No artist aspires to the creation of Art; he is enveloped in the process of Making. This process is circumstantial to the viewer and his creation. Through making, the artist creates himself. Through response, the viewer may experience epiphany. Whether the responder can or will demagnetize the needle of hegemonic gestalt and embrace the chaos of self-creation is not the maker’s concern; it lies within the bourn of the creator.... I, the maker, have attended this plane time after innumerable time. This is a place I have known always and yet is always unknown. There is no place more mysterious and exotic than this foreign place. Here, I am always a stranger. I come here to create shadows out of pure light. I come here to destroy my face. I come here to create a stranger. If my enterprise here is successful, my failure is worthy of return. Here, on this plane of paradox where viewer becomes creator, anarchy is born. The chimera of hierarchy is dissolved into noisome pixels of deposed authority. Silence erases dimension and actuality reforms to a palimpsest of alternate realities. always the way it was becomes always the way it is and always the way it might have been and always the way it might be. Always there is choice. Always there is choice until a final choice is made. Ecce humanitas.... I speak now for myself as maker, as skater across a seamless and boundless plane of light, a single glide of ever increasing weightlessness and space. There is no sound, there are no shadows. I remember only the future. The unforgiving coldness of this place inflames me. I embrace it as it enfolds me. As it has always enfolded me. I am in and of its vacuity and provoke its indifference. I would be recognized but shun all that would recognize me. I skate this plane like one pursued by shame, erasing, and honing my blades against distraction and obstruction, clearing and cutting a path through the shadowless light. I am dissolved by light and hidden in its brilliance. The light has eaten my edges and destroyed definition. Do not seek me here. I am finished with it. Only you, the viewer, responder, perhaps creator can define this space. For me, it has become a weighted opacity, an artifact of indifference. As this triangle impends to infinity, the ghosts of new work present themselves. As I prepare to leave this plane, they will consort me. It is they who have prepared my next place of encounter which is this same place...which I will not recognize. I sense their presence. I know they are here, pressing altering, shifting their weights and contours in spasms of peripheral excitation, creases and undulations in the light. These glimpses are the essence of Greek perspective. I grasp their enormity as they distance themselves in ambiguity. As my desire enlarges, my hand is hastened in anticipation. I must quit this plane before they materialize, before objectification. They yearn for closure. They seek unbroken light as this plane layers, a triplicity of past, present and future, a scumbled erasure of recordation. Stains of the past cavort with ghosts of the future on the labored plane of the present in a noise of absence, a clamor of silence. Completion becomes an auto-da-fé, an execution enforcing conversion. An admission, of sorts, that the plane of the Future could not be homogenized beyond recognition. My failure can only be rectified by the creator. Purity exists only in his response and ever and always I, the maker, remain senseless of creation. I search not so that others can find. There is no selflessness in my production. I make only to free myself of repetition, to free myself of linearity and history and compilation. I long to create absence...to be free of evidence...to be pure light...to exist in orgasm and epiphany. To destroy my face. Recognition repels me. I court no audience and leave this plane to its creator. Only through his creations will I be erased. By his self-creation are we become light. As the triplicity tilts more and more this plane toward the future, the present bends into a shadowing and weighted past. It can no longer sustain purchase. I, the maker, must enforce the present on this plane of possibility through the reification of light. I cannot erase the stains of the past from this bent and bended plane; they are beyond redemption. In order to retain balance and achieve departure, I must restrict peripheral vision and banish ghosts of the future to their predestination. Narrow is the way to withdrawal from this emptied space. No curiosity attends my departure as to its future occupancy. If I, the maker, have furnished this space and enhanced its capacity for occupation, then my stripping of self has served further purpose. This plane, for me, has entered into palimpsest and erasure. My success will once again be measured in the unforgiving light of failure on a new plane in a foreign place in the paradox of self-creation...Ecce Humanitas. The triangle descends from the horizon of east/west diversity to its apex of direction pointing toward survival on the compass of human possibility. The imperium of masculine gestalt must be castrated, the directive needle de-magnetized, the reality of repeat annihilated. In redundancy, mankind must learn to destroy its face, its mask which was never a face whose empty sockets stare blindly toward a future which is no future which is neither past nor present but the end of time and dimension and all things measurable, which is the completion of direction and directive, which is the end of the human experiment and the fulfillment of prophecy which was no prophecy but, rather, the obfuscation of process. An excuse for inevitability, the obviousness of conclusion. Ecce homo.

   

All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self. It certainly does strike me as a joke about my self. What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself—a troupe of players that I have internalized, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required, an ever-evolving stock of pieces and parts that forms my repertoire. But I certainly have no self independent of my imposturing, artistic efforts to have one. Nor would I want one. I am a theatre and nothing more than a theatre.

-Philip Roth, The Counterlife

U.S. Embassy Staff march in support of ending violence

   

Making a stand and joining efforts in celebrating 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign 2011 in Samoa, the Chargé d’Affaires Chad Berbert and staff of U.S. Embassy Apia joined more than 300 members of government ministries, diplomatic corps, international organizations and civil society groups in a march parade on November 25. The parade on Beach Road Apia transcended from the Police Headquarter to the Government Building at Matagialalua, where the marchers were met by the Prime Minister of Samoa, Hon. Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi.

 

samoa.usembassy.gov

 

facebook.com/samoa.usembassy

 

Let’s End the Cycle of Violence

Chad J. Berbert

 

Chargé d’Affaires

U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa

 

Violence against women and girls touches Samoa just as it does other nations. Gender-based violence is a global pandemic that cuts across all borders - ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, and religion. It can threaten women and girls at any point in their life- from female feticide and inadequate access to education and nutrition to child marriage, incest, and so-called "honor" killings. It can take the form of dowry -related murder or domestic violence, rape (including spousal rape), sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking in persons, or the neglect and ostracism of widows. One in three women around the world will experience some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime. In some countries that number is as high as 70 percent.

 

This year, we once again mark "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence." It is clear that the international community must offer up more than words to answer the call to free women and girls from violence. Whether it happens behind closed doors or as a public tactic of intimidation, whether down the street or on distant shores, violence against women and girls damages us all - men and women alike.

 

We must stand up to the impunity that too often leaves the egregious perpetrators unaccountable for their crimes. We must redress the low status of women and girls around the world that renders them undervalued and vulnerable. Further, we must support the inclusion of men and boys in addressing and preventing violence and changing gender attitudes. We must increase accountability and commitment by community and government leaders on this issue, and we must highlight and promote effective programs that are already successfully at work.

 

These 16 Days are a sobering reminder that gender-based violence cannot be treated as solely a women's issue - it is a profound challenge for the entire world. Gender-based violence is not just an affront to human rights and dignity – it adversely impacts the welfare of our communities. When women and girls are abused, businesses close, incomes shrink, families go hungry, and children grow up internalizing behavior that perpetuates the cycle of violence. There is no end to the economic and detrimental social and health costs that come along with this brutality.

 

This damage is passed on to the rest of the community as judicial, health and security services are strained. Violence effectively acts as a cancer on societies, causing enormous upheaval in the progress of social and economic development. Physical violence vastly increases women's risk for a range of serious conditions, including reproductive health problems, miscarriages, and sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV. There are also strong linkages to maternal mortality, as well as poor child health, and morbidity.

 

The Government of Samoa through the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development has initiated various awareness programs such as the Gender Based Violence Project and the Mothers and Daughters Project. In civil society there have been tremendous contributions from NGO groups such as Samoa Victims Support Group, Mapusaga o Aiga, Pan Pacific South East Asian Women Association (PPSEAWA) of Samoa, and Faataua le Ola to name a few. These groups have worked tirelessly to bring to light gender violence issues and to help educate the public, prevent abuse, and break the cycle of violence.

 

These 16 days offer an opportunity to renew the commitment to free women and girls from the nightmare of violence. Countries cannot progress when half their populations are marginalized and mistreated, and subjected to discrimination. When women and girls are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities in education, healthcare, employment, and political participation, they lift up their families, their communities, and their nations – and act as agents of change.

 

As Secretary Clinton recently noted, "Investing in the potential of the world's women and girls is one of the surest ways to achieve global economic progress, political stability, and greater prosperity for women – and men - the world over."

 

Let’s make the investment. Let’s end the cycle of violence, not just for these 16 days but for our future.

Are you braced to change your views?

To pile up all your beliefs?

'Cause we're gonna take you all

Thru a shortcut

But we're not thieves

 

I said it's a short cut

Even it's not really short

Cause it burns most of how

We act, think and also fuck

 

Westernization

Democratization

Values they taught

Unnoticed obligation

 

Slaves of these deceits,

Too deeply internalized.

Listen to us, young guys!

Go protect your minds

 

GO!!!

We're gonna party YEAH!!!

No one can tell us NO!!!

Cause now we're gonna

TOUR ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!

 

We leave the message all over the world

 

We worked for generations

Sacrificing other's freedom

Killing each other

To gain something we lose

Every time we die.

 

Don't you feel that it's wrong?

The life's conception we were taught

Cannot keep us quiet anymore

Na na na na na na na na

 

IT CANNOT KEEP US QUIET ANYMORE!!!

Na na na na na na na na

 

The bastards want us to believe

War is the way to feel free

No other ways to live in peace

Fuck 'em all!

They cannot keep us quiet anymore!

 

Westernization

Democratization

Values they taught

Unnoticed obligation

 

They say ''you should stop to go around, speak to unknown people

believing in something which does not get you rich and good looking''

 

I Tour

Hope you too

 

♫♪♫ SunEatsHours

Warrior Shield by: Pearl Vanessa-Rose Scott, Fort Peck Sioux, age: 20.

 

2012 National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day:

 

CONTACT: K. Alane Golden

Com./S.M. Specialist, NARA, NW: Nak-Nu-Wit

503.224. 1044, extension 264

agolden@naranorthwest.org

 

The Portland, Oregon Based Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Inc., NARA NW, Will Join More than 1,000 National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day Celebrations’ Nationwide.

 

PORTLAND, OR — On Wednesday, May 9th, 2012, NARA, NW will host a Family Day celebration at Concordia University (2811 NE Holman Portland 97211) from 3 – 7pm, joining more than 1,000 communities and 115 federal programs and national organizations across the country participating in events, youth demonstrations, and social networking campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of children’s mental health. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day seeks to raise awareness about the importance of positive mental health from birth. This year, the Awareness Day national event will focus on young children from birth to 8 years old by emphasizing the need to build resilience in young children dealing with trauma.

 

For the past forty – two years, NARA, NW has provided culturally appropriate education, physical and mental health services and substance abuse treatment to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other vulnerable people in the greater Portland metro community. NARA’s unique wraparound child and family mental health services program, Nak Nu Wit, serves families, their young children and youth with mental health challenges, offering culturally-based services and supports needed to thrive at home, in school, and in the community. Research has shown when children as young as 18 months are exposed to traumatic life events, they can develop serious psychological problems later in life and have a greater risk for experiencing problems with substance abuse, depression and physical health. Integrating social-emotional and resilience-building skills into every environment can have a positive impact on a child's healthy development.

 

In conjunction with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and Concordia University, NARA, NW will celebrate Awareness Day locally by hosting a Family Day with the culturally-rooted theme: "Warriors Against Trauma", highlighting the strengths & adventure-based youth and family activities, to Elder storytelling, traditional drumming, dancing and singing, the event offers something for everyone - blending rich history and traditions of the past with modern day tribal urban culture. Attendees will enjoy complimentary face-painting, food and drinks, arts, crafts, ceremony, storytelling with Ed Edmo and a special performance by Emcee One and an array of mental health materials and resources aimed at reducing stigma. The event will focus attention on the importance of providing comprehensive, community-based mental health supports and services to enhance resilience and nurture strength-based skills in young children from birth. In the NARA community, Elders, family relations, community members, spiritual helpers and friends are invited to help the family. Nak Nu Wit is a Sahaptin phrase describing the program’s philosophy and mission:

 

“Everything / All things are being taken care of for the people, the people are the project, our responsibility, our work.” It is in this spirit that NARA welcomes all to attend this free event.

 

NARA, NW holds sacred the culture and traditions’ passed down from our ancestors and believes that when we recognize our “Warrior Self”, we can exhibit strength, without sacrificing tenderness. It is precisely because our ancestors called upon their inner warriors to be a source of strength to draw upon in times of great need that we exist today. The “Warriors Against Trauma” campaign honors our ancestors and asks today’s youth to thoughtfully deploy their “Warrior Spirits” to manifest as clarity, focus, determination, courage, constancy and an unflappable zest for life.

 

“Trauma Warriors” understand a true warrior views roadblocks as evolutionary opportunities, and isn't afraid to pursue a purpose to its finish – in the face of hardship, adversity, or strife. There is more than enough room in the existence of the warrior for softness and benevolence, and the warrior’s willingness to stand up for their beliefs can aid greatly in the healing process. As our youth strive to incorporate these ideals with today’s fast-paced world, they broaden their realities to internalize mindfulness while overcoming life’s challenges with an unwavering intensity of spirit. Can we get a W.A.T., W.A.T.?

 

"’Awareness Day is an opportunity for us to join with communities across the country in celebrating the positive impact we have on the lives of young people when we’re able to integrate culturally relevant positive mental health into every environment,’ says Terry Ellis, Child and Family Services Clinical Manager. ‘When we focus on building resilience and coping skills in young children from birth, especially if they have experienced a traumatic event, we can help young children, youth, and their families thrive.’"

 

Data released on May 3, 2011, by SAMHSA indicates that an estimated 26% of American children will witness, or experience a traumatic event, before the age of 4 years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 60% of American adults say they endured abuse, or other difficult family circumstances, during childhood. Research has shown exposure to traumatic events early in life can have many negative effects throughout childhood and adolescence, into adulthood. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study found a strong relationship between traumatic events experienced in childhood as reported in adulthood, and chronic physical illness such as heart disease, and mental health problems which includes depression.

 

The annual financial burden to society of childhood abuse and trauma is estimated to be $103 billion. NARA, NW is committed not only to treatment aimed at reducing this financial burden, but, strives to address historical trauma through culturally-based mental health services. Through NARA’s child and family mental health programs, our families and youth are treated by nationally recognized trauma experts who aim to decrease the prevalence of exposure to traumatic events among children and youth to eliminate intergenerational trauma, the problems trauma causes, and offer available treatments that can help children and youth recover through resilience. It is a great honor to act as liaisons, standing side-by-side with family and community members helping ensure the complete mental health and well being our youth so they may continue the traditions passed down from elders with strength, honor and dignity.

 

12 year old Mechoopta Maidu tribal member and Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day contributing artist reflects upon what a Warrior Against Trauma means to him, “I have very bad dreams that wake me up at night. With help from Amber, I learned to call my Warrior to make the bad things that happen to me when I sleep go away. He protects me by throwing a tomahawk at the bad things, making them disappear and helping me sleep better.” Michael, NARA Nak Nu Wit client.

 

For more information, join the conversation on Facebook: www.facebook.com//NARANCMHAD and Follow us on Twitter @NCMHAD

Warrior Shield Campaign Art by: Pearl Vanessa-Rose Scott, Fort Peck Sioux, age: 20.

 

NARA, NW Trauma Warrior Art by: Michael, Mechoopta Maidu, age: 12.

...

-----------------------------------------------------

CONTACT: K. @Alane Golden

Com./S.M. Specialist, NARA, NW: Nak-Nu-Wit

503.224. 1044, extension 264

agolden@naranorthwest.org

 

The Portland, Oregon Based Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Inc., NARA NW, Will Join More than 1,000 National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day Celebrations’ Nationwide.

 

PORTLAND, OR — On Wednesday, May 9th, 2012, NARA, NW will host a Family Day celebration at Concordia University (2811 NE Holman Portland 97211) from 3 – 7pm, joining more than 1,000 communities and 115 federal programs and national organizations across the country participating in events, youth demonstrations, and social networking campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of children’s mental health. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day seeks to raise awareness about the importance of positive mental health from birth. This year, the Awareness Day national event will focus on young children from birth to 8 years old by emphasizing the need to build resilience in young children dealing with trauma.

 

For the past forty – two years, NARA, NW has provided culturally appropriate education, physical and mental health services and substance abuse treatment to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other vulnerable people in the greater Portland metro community. NARA’s unique wraparound child and family mental health services program, Nak Nu Wit, serves families, their young children and youth with mental health challenges, offering culturally-based services and supports needed to thrive at home, in school, and in the community. Research has shown when children as young as 18 months are exposed to traumatic life events, they can develop serious psychological problems later in life and have a greater risk for experiencing problems with substance abuse, depression and physical health. Integrating social-emotional and resilience-building skills into every environment can have a positive impact on a child's healthy development.

 

In conjunction with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and Concordia University, NARA, NW will celebrate Awareness Day locally by hosting a Family Day with the culturally-rooted theme: "Warriors Against Trauma", highlighting the strengths & adventure-based youth and family activities, to Elder storytelling, traditional drumming, dancing and singing, the event offers something for everyone - blending rich history and traditions of the past with modern day tribal urban culture. Attendees will enjoy complimentary face-painting, food and drinks, arts, crafts, ceremony, storytelling with Ed Edmo and a special performance by Emcee One and an array of mental health materials and resources aimed at reducing stigma. The event will focus attention on the importance of providing comprehensive, community-based mental health supports and services to enhance resilience and nurture strength-based skills in young children from birth. In the NARA community, Elders, family relations, community members, spiritual helpers and friends are invited to help the family. Nak Nu Wit is a Sahaptin phrase describing the program’s philosophy and mission:

 

“Everything / All things are being taken care of for the people, the people are the project, our responsibility, our work.” It is in this spirit that NARA welcomes all to attend this free event.

 

NARA, NW holds sacred the culture and traditions’ passed down from our ancestors and believes that when we recognize our “Warrior Self”, we can exhibit strength, without sacrificing tenderness. It is precisely because our ancestors called upon their inner warriors to be a source of strength to draw upon in times of great need that we exist today. The “Warriors Against Trauma” campaign honors our ancestors and asks today’s youth to thoughtfully deploy their “Warrior Spirits” to manifest as clarity, focus, determination, courage, constancy and an unflappable zest for life.

 

“Trauma Warriors” understand a true warrior views roadblocks as evolutionary opportunities, and isn't afraid to pursue a purpose to its finish – in the face of hardship, adversity, or strife. There is more than enough room in the existence of the warrior for softness and benevolence, and the warrior’s willingness to stand up for their beliefs can aid greatly in the healing process. As our youth strive to incorporate these ideals with today’s fast-paced world, they broaden their realities to internalize mindfulness while overcoming life’s challenges with an unwavering intensity of spirit. Can we get a W.A.T., W.A.T.?

 

"’Awareness Day is an opportunity for us to join with communities across the country in celebrating the positive impact we have on the lives of young people when we’re able to integrate culturally relevant positive mental health into every environment,’ says Terry Ellis, Child and Family Services Clinical Manager. ‘When we focus on building resilience and coping skills in young children from birth, especially if they have experienced a traumatic event, we can help young children, youth, and their families thrive.’"

 

Data released on May 3, 2011, by SAMHSA indicates that an estimated 26% of American children will witness, or experience a traumatic event, before the age of 4 years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 60% of American adults say they endured abuse, or other difficult family circumstances, during childhood. Research has shown exposure to traumatic events early in life can have many negative effects throughout childhood and adolescence, into adulthood. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study found a strong relationship between traumatic events experienced in childhood as reported in adulthood, and chronic physical illness such as heart disease, and mental health problems which includes depression.

 

The annual financial burden to society of childhood abuse and trauma is estimated to be $103 billion. NARA, NW is committed not only to treatment aimed at reducing this financial burden, but, strives to address historical trauma through culturally-based mental health services. Through NARA’s child and family mental health programs, our families and youth are treated by nationally recognized trauma experts who aim to decrease the prevalence of exposure to traumatic events among children and youth to eliminate intergenerational trauma, the problems trauma causes, and offer available treatments that can help children and youth recover through resilience. It is a great honor to act as liaisons, standing side-by-side with family and community members helping ensure the complete mental health and well being our youth so they may continue the traditions passed down from elders with strength, honor and dignity.

 

12 year old Mechoopta Maidu tribal member and Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day contributing artist reflects upon what a Warrior Against Trauma means to him, “I have very bad dreams that wake me up at night. With help from Amber, I learned to call my Warrior to make the bad things that happen to me when I sleep go away. He protects me by throwing a tomahawk at the bad things, making them disappear and helping me sleep better.” Michael, NARA Nak Nu Wit client.

 

For more information, join the conversation on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/NARANCMHAD/ and Follow us on Twitter @NCMHAD

—

Just like anyone on social media, I like to fill my feed with happy images and highlights from my personal and professional life….but it’s time to start talking about the REAL stuff too!

Although it may seem like I have all of the happiness and confidence in the world if you look at my social media accounts, I have struggled with self esteem issues my entire life.

As a child, I grew up in an abusive environment filled with unresolved generational traumas where I was made to feel like I was the problem in myfamily, and unknowingly internalized that I as an individual was bad.

As with most abusive households, mine was an environment where nothing felt safe….even being myself. So, I began to develop a laundry list of unhealthy coping mechanisms, and a state of “survival mode” became my baseline as I entered my developmental years.

I felt so powerless under my father’s endless emotional abuse and violent outbursts at home, that I not only began to believe that type of behavior was normal, but also constantly felt the need to gain agency and assert my own will wherever possible. Which, obviously, did not go over well with my peers and teachers, and only caused me to more deeply internalize that I must be bad as I began to establish my sense of self outside of my family.

 

Like millions of other people with unresolved trauma, as things got worse for me emotionally, I turned to food for comfort, and quickly found myself significantly larger than almost everyone around me in elementary school. Something that my peers and father often made note of in cruel ways that hurt me so deeply and only further caused me to internalize that I must be bad.

Eventually, all of the shame that I felt during my childhood snowballed into deep depression and uncontrollable anxiety that I tried to heal with piles of prescriptions from different doctors that couldn’t seem to figure out what was “wrong” with me. When, in reality there was nothing “wrong” with me. I simply needed to find peace and be reminded that I AM GOOD.

 

Over the years - especially as I became an expectant mother at 17 years old and faced so much judgement for my choice to leave school in order to work while I was a pregnant - I found that excelling at my job served as an excellent surrogate for the validation I was seeking in my personal relationships, and I began to throw myself into my career, both as a way to support myself and my daughter as a single parent, and as a way to prove to myself through tangible means like paychecks and promotions that I was good.

It wasn’t until all of the unresolved trauma that I had been trying to bury with work began to manifest itself physically, that I finally accepted it was time to begin trying to show myself the love I knew I needed in order for my body to heal….even if the concept of being lovable still seemed totally forgeign to me, and I had no idea where to begin!

 

Abuse is a hard cycle to break, and self love is a hard lesson to learn. So, my path to healing was far from linear, or easy, but once I made that commitment to find and nurture the parts of myself that I loved, amazing things began to happen!

I’m pretty sure my friends and family thought I was losing my mind more than finding myself at first! But, as I began to explore myself as an energetic being and learn more about inner child and shadow work, I discovered that I wasn’t bad. I had just learned to protect (rather dysfunctionally) the vibrant, loving and vulnerable little Melissa who had learned that she needed to stay hidden in order to stay safe so long ago!

As anyone who has recovered from abuse can tell you, the hardest part about breaking the cycle is having no example of how to be any other way. My life had been filled with negativity for so long that I struggled to find myself in a peaceful situation even as I worked to heal myself.

As anyone who has recovered from abuse can also tell you, you just get used to it.

The pain and chaos becomes your baseline, and even when you are consciously in a state of growth away from that state of being, it’s all too easy to find yourself slipping back into relationships that make you feel most comfortable - even if they are simply toxic AF. Which is exactly what I was doing…..until I met Nate.

 

Before I met Nate, I had no idea what it felt like to be seen completely, and not only be accepted for who I was, but adored for it.

Most importantly though, Nate made me feel safe.

For the first time in my life, I was able to stop just surviving, and started thriving in ways I had forgotten that I was capable of.

It was like I had been trudging through mud my entire life, and was finally walking on solid ground for the first time when I finally learned to accept his love.

I began to see the entire world differently.

Instead of an endless stream of stressful situations and impending disasters, I started to see my life as promising and full of possibilities.

I began to see myself differently.

Instead of someone I felt I should be ashamed of, I started to see myself as someone kind and capable that I was proud to share with other people.

 

Once that shift occurred, I began to accomplish so many more things I felt that I could be proud of!

I learned to show myself the kindness I wish I had been shown, and found how freeing it can be to see the world through a less defensive lense.

I launched a successful private chef business out of nothing but my passion for food while I was still waiting tables and had nothing but my intuition to guide me.

I grew that little business into something that could provide a better life, and was finally able to start working for myself.

I built second, and third, businesses that provided me with more opportunities to do what I love, and a real sense that I was capable of so much good.

I started to be able to show up as my authentic self in social situations with less fear of being “seen” and judged for it.

But, even with all of those things to be proud of, I still held so much shame and anxiety around the idea that I was still somehow fundamentally bad at my core, and it was only a matter of time before I, and everyone else, would start to see it again.

 

The way that I had once used paychecks and promotions to provide myself with tangible evidence that I was good, I began to use images on social media as a tangible way for me to remind myself of all the positives when the negative self talk began to sneak into my mind.

At the time, I didn’t really think much into my motivation for posting about my life’s highlights on social media, because after all, it’s what everyone else does too and, let’s be honest - who doesn’t like getting likes?!

But when the pandemic hit last year and my ability to produce content that I felt I could use to prove to myself that I AM good was halted, it forced me to really examine the deeper emotional reasons that I felt it was so important for me to only share things that aligned with an image of positivity and success.

Being positive, and constantly focused on growth, is a huge part of who I am at my core - but it’s far from who I am all the time.

While I spent hours scrolling through social media during the early days of quarantine, I felt completely paralyzed as I watched other people post photos and videos of themselves functioning in ways I couldn’t even imagine in the moment.

It might sound silly, but when I felt the most lost in my emotions, just being able to just create and share a post about how to make a healthy smoothie made me feel like I was at least doing one thing I could be proud of, no matter how ashamed of myself I felt in the moment.

 

Thankfully, resilience seems to be my super power (dysfunctional as some of my survival mechanisms may be.) So, it didn’t take long for me to snap out of that depression and into that familiar feeling of “survival mode” that allowed me to begin working on ways to keep my businesses alive.

Being able to snap myself out of that paralyzing depression reminded me that I am a survivor and gave me the energy I needed to keep moving forward, but it also triggered all kinds of unhealthy coping mechanisms that I had worked so hard to move away from.

On the outside, I was pivoting like a pro. But, internally, it felt like my emotional state was falling to pieces.

Even though I knew that almost everyone else was struggling with their emotions as well, I just couldn’t bring myself to authentically share any of that darkness on social media.

I shared the smoothies.

I shared the healthy dinners.

I shared all of the milestones as I worked to rebuild my businesses.

Because that’s what made me feel safe.

 

What I didn’t share, was the insecurity.

What I didn't share, were the days that I could barely motivate myself to eat, let alone create something beautiful, or inspire anyone else to embrace taking care of themselves.

What I didn’t share, was the fear that everyone might see me at my worst and judge me for it.

What I didn’t share, was that I was really posting all of that for me, to prove to myself that I was still worthy of love - even though the only one who was even questioning that, was me!

Once I realized that I was using images on social media as a mask, I knew it was time to start healing those pieces of me that I still felt that I needed to hide.

I also knew that I wanted to share my story more authentically on social media somehow. But, I didn’t quite know how…..until I saw a post on Facebook from a local photographer working on a project about women sharing their authentic stories on social media, and it just spoke to me!

 

The concept was an unstyled shoot that showed the authentic me, accompanied by an essay to do the same - which seemed simple. But, it proved to be such a greater struggle than I had imagined!

The essay I could edit, and I’ve always loved to write, so I wasn’t worried about that. But, the photoshoot made me SO nervous!

Having grown up in a home where appearance and projecting the right image seemed to be of paramount importance, the idea of photos that might not portray me in the best light being published on the internet triggered all kinds of insecurities for me.

On the day of the shoot, I just chose to wear what was comfortable - the things I actually wear when I’m not trying to look a certain way.

I didn’t style my hair, or bother with more than my everyday makeup that consists of tinted moisturizer, a bit of bronzer and a little mascara.

If it were any regular day I would have felt perfectly comfortable with the way I looked.

In fact, I had made plans to meet a friend for dinner right after the shoot and felt great about the way I looked for that experience! But, the idea of being photographed like that, especially outside by the water where the wind would inevitably reveal angles of my face that I find unflattering, gave me anxiety for days before the shoot.

 

When I arrived for the shoot, I was nervous and far from the outgoing, confident Melissa that usually arrives at photoshoots when I’m styled perfectly and feeling my best.

As we walked through the quiet woods with the snow crunching beneath my boots, I realized that I felt so nervous because I had shown up to this photoshoot as the little Melissa that I had learned to hide and protect.

As we began to shoot, I started to feel sad, and strange that this would be the side of me captured on camera for this project. But, I quickly realized that it wasn’t sadness for the situation at hand that I was feeling.

It was sadness for little Melissa who had internalized that she wasn’t worth being seen just as she was.

Throughout the shoot, I couldn’t seem to shake that sense of sadness and I worried the photos would be ruined because of it.

But, when I saw the photos from the shoot a few weeks later, I realized that as we were walking and talking throughout the shoot, the images that Nikki captured began to tell a story.

The first photos looked posed and happy. But, of course they did. Because that’s my favorite mask, especially in front of the camera! So, I obviously felt fine about those being shared.

But, then there were some awkward attempts at me actually being natural in front of a camera. Which completely triggered all of the negative self-talk that typically leads to me taking great measures to avoid photos like that from ever seeing the light of day.

As we moved on, I could see the vulnerability in my eyes as I tried to let my guard down, and I felt so exposed knowing that side of myself would be shared.

Once we were by the water though, I started to see a sense of ease, and even strength emerging in the photos. Even if they weren’t my best angles and my hair was a mess, it looked like ME!

Not the styled, polished version of myself that I feel safest showing the world, but the authentic me that I have no problem sharing with the people I feel safe with.

 

Don’t get me wrong - I very authentically do LOVE to get dressed up, and genuinely think it’s fun to play with personal styling. It’s just fun for me! But, participating in this project has really helped me to reflect on how much I had been using my image as a mask to protect myself from negative self-talk.

As we all know now, wearing a mask can keep us safe, but it also prevents us from being fully seen.

Yes, taking off your mask can be a risk, just like letting other people see you completely can be a risk.

But, as we all know now after a year full of physical masking, nothing feels better than FINALLY being able to take off your mask and just breathe!

I was going to use this for a summer assignment for AIB (my university), but it seemed to dark in the end. This focuses on inner conflict and the pulls of positivity and negativity.

 

Id: the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle.

 

Ego: the part of the psychic apparatus that experiences and reacts to the outside world and thus mediates between the primitive drives of the id and the demands of the social and physical environment.

 

Super-ego: the part of the personality representing the conscience, formed in early life by internalization of standards.

The Doll Project is a series of conceptual digital photographs that uses fashion dolls to embody the negative messages the media gives to young girls. Though it would not be fair to blame it all on Barbie, there have been many instances in which she has come dangerously close. I chose to use Barbie dolls because they are miniature mannequins, emblems of the fashion world writ small, a representation of our culture's impossible standards of beauty scaled to one sixth actual size. The little pink scale and How To Lose Weight book are both real Barbie accessories from the 1960s. They are recurring motifs in the pictures in the series, symbolizing the ongoing dissatisfaction many girls and women feel about their weight and body image. The dolls' names, Ana and Mia, are taken from internet neologisms coined by anorexic and bulimic girls who have formed online communities with the unfortunate purpose of encouraging each other in their disordered eating. With each passing era, Ana and Mia are younger and younger, and the physical ideal to which they aspire becomes more unattainable. They internalize the unrealistic expectations of a society that digitally manipulates images of women in fashion and beauty advertisements and value their own bodies only as objects for others to look at and desire.

 

Read more about the project here:

tiffanygholar.blogspot.com/2008/08/doll-project.html

 

Purchase prints here:

society6.com/TiffanyGholar

 

Buy the book on Amazon and Etsy.

Shown here is an image of Case 1 from the exhibit "The Virginia Way of Life Must Be Preserved", on display in the Nancy Marshall Gallery on the 1st floor of Swem Library at the College of William & Mary. This exhibit is part of "From Fights to Rights: The Long Road to a More Perfect Union," Swem Library's project to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement. The exhibit is on display from June 18-October 22, 2012.

 

The following is a transcription of the labels presented in this case:

 

Brown v. Board of Education, 1954:

 

The students and parents of Farmville’s Moton High School worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in suing the school board of Prince Edward County. The NAACP previously had sought to force school boards to make black schools equal to white ones, but in 1950 it had changed its strategy to try to overturn segregation as unconstitutional. It was involved in cases all over the country, not just in Virginia. The Supreme Court bundled four of the cases, including the Farmville case, together into Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Thurgood Marshall and other NAACP lawyers argued before the Court that segregation violated the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. constitution. Based on tests showing that black children preferred white dolls over black dolls, they also argued that mandatory segregation psychologically damaged children of color, making them internalize feelings of racial inferiority.

 

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown case that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Chief Justice Earl Warren, pictured here speaking at William & Mary later that year, worked hard to get a unanimous decision and became the target of white Southerners’ worst venom. In May 1955, in Brown II, the Supreme Court ordered that desegregation proceed “with all deliberate speed” but left supervision of the task to federal district courts.

 

The photograph of Moton High’s Class of 1956 visibly demonstrates that desegregation did not happen overnight. The school was just as segregated in 1956 as the schools attended by class sponsor Mabel Ragsdale Watson and her sister Laura Ragsdale when they were school girls in Roanoke decades earlier, as seen in Laura’s photo album.

 

The Gray Commission, 1954-1955:

 

The Brown decision stunned Virginia’s leaders. At first, they seemed willing to accept the Court’s ruling, but angry newspaper editors and white voters called for resistance. Governor Thomas Stanley then appointed a commission, chaired by State Senator Garland Gray and consisting entirely of white legislators, to determine how to respond. In November 1955, the Gray Commission issued recommendations designed to delay desegregation but allow localities to decide if they would desegregate quickly or not. Among other proposals, the Gray plan recommended giving tuition vouchers so parents could send their children to segregated private schools. The assembly quickly adopted the Gray Commission report in principle. Since the state constitution did not allow public money to be used for private schools, it needed to be amended for tuition vouchers to be possible. A referendum on January 9, 1956 overwhelmingly approved calling a constitutional convention which did just that.

 

Massive Resistance, 1956-1957:

 

In response to Brown II, the Arlington County School Board announced in late 1955 that it would gradually integrate. The NAACP helped parents and students file lawsuits to force integration elsewhere in Virginia. Ardent segregationists, fearing that integration anywhere

could lead to integration everywhere, demanded stronger resistance to Brown. Nowhere was resistance greater than among the white population of Southside, the most heavily black region in Virginia. Southside was the heart of the Byrd Organization, the Democratic machine that had run the state since the 1920s under the leadership of U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, pictured here with Republican State Senator Ted Dalton. In February 1956, Byrd proposed a program of “massive resistance” to school integration. Byrd supported the Virginia assembly’s resolution of “interposition” that declared the Brown decision unconstitutional and unenforceable, although this had no actual legal effect. More importantly, in September 1956, the assembly passed a program of massive resistance laws, known as the Stanley Plan after the governor. The plan denied state aid to any locality that allowed desegregation of even one school, authorized the governor to close any school that federal courts ordered integrated, and provided tuition grants to help white parents send their children to segregated private schools if their local public school closed.

 

School Closings, 1959:

 

The Stanley Plan met with immediate challenges in federal courts, with cases pending through 1957 and into 1958. As the school year began in the fall of 1958, federal judges ordered previously all-white schools in Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk to integrate. Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr. shut the schools down rather than allowing them to integrate. In November, Norfolk voters voted against petitioning the governor to reopen the city schools, even though the closing affected 10,000 white students and seventeen black students. On January 19, 1959, the state supreme court ruled that the closings violated the state constitution’s provision requiring there to be public schools and the federal district court ruled that the closings violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. The courts ordered that the schools be reopened.

 

Prince Edward County, 1959-1964 and Beyond:

 

After briefly considering shutting the state’s public schools down entirely, Governor Almond conceded defeat and reluctantly allowed integration to proceed very slowly. The more extreme segregationists denounced Almond as a traitor. The state legislature once again adopted a local-option plan, with tuition grants and a pupil placement program that allowed students to be assigned to schools in ways that minimized “race mixing.” The county government in Prince Edward County, in the heart of Southside, shut down its public school system entirely. Using state tuition grants, many white students attended a new private academy, but other white students and all the students of color were left without formal schooling unless they left the county. The Supreme Court in 1964 ordered Prince Edward to reopen its public schools. At that point, only five percent of African American students statewide attended integrated schools.

 

In 1968, the Supreme Court invalidated the pupil-placement program and ordered an end to separate white and black school systems in a decision involving New Kent County. And in 1970, a federal judge ordered a busing plan implemented to desegregate Richmond schools. Not until the late 1980s did busing end.

 

From the Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary. See swem.wm.edu/scrc/ for further information and assistance.