James Baquet

    When asked to name great artists of the Renaissance, most people would pretty handily come up with the names of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. But who would be a third?

    We need look no further than the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” for the answer. They are named da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello, and in fact the artist Raphael (1483-1520) is often named as the third member of the “trinity” of great Italian Renaissance artists.

    It was almost inevitable that he would become so. Unlike da Vinci and Michelangelo — both of whom were sons of minor government functionaries — Raphael was the son of Giovanni Santi, court painter to the powerful and highly cultured Duke of Urbino, Federico III, who died the year before Raphael was born.

    Federico’s son Guidobaldo was equally refined in his tastes and generous in his patronage, so Raphael grew up in one of the most elegant courts in Europe, which the writer Baldassare Castiglione used as his model when he wrote “The Book of the Courtier,” a guide to the proper manners for members of a court.

    But Raphael was no dilettante. He was a tremendously productive artist, who ran a large workshop. It happened that his mother died when he was 8. His father remarried, and then died three years later. This left the boy an orphan at 11, living with his stepmother. At this point there was no one to run his father’s workshop, so at that tender age, with help from his stepmother, he was involved in its operation, while also serving apprenticeship to other artists.

    Raphael died young, aged only 37. The near-contemporary biographer Vasari reported that the cause of death was a wild night with his mistress! But he left behind many notable works. One of my favorites is “The School of Athens,” which shows some 21 of the great Greek philosophers gathered in a porch under a huge arch. It is a masterpiece of Renaissance art, looking back as it does to the very thinkers who gave rise to the “rebirth of learning” of which Raphael and his fellows were a part.

    Vocabulary

    Which word above means:

    1. not the same as

    2. one who plays at something, without real commitment

    3. a recognized group of three things

    4. one who serves a duke, prince, king, etc.

    5. not able to be avoided, a certainty

    6. people who fulfill a role

    7. elegant, cultured

    8. support of the arts

    9. lover to whom a man is not married

    10. easily, with little effort