having completed that, as one who had finished the great work which he had to accomplish, he touched the pencils no more, being shortly afterwards overtaken by death.[1]
Having now described the works of this most excellent artist, I will not permit myself to consider it a labour to say somewhat for the benefit of those who practise our calling, respecting the manner of Raphael, before proceeding to the relation of such particulars as remain to be specified in regard to other circumstances of his life, and to those which relate to his death. In his childhood he had imitated the manner of his master, Pietro Perugino, but had greatly ameliorated the same, whether as regarded design, colouring, or invention: having done this, it then appeared to him that he had done enough, but when he had attained to a riper age he perceived clearly that he was still too far from the truth of nature. On becoming acquainted with the works of Leonardo da Vinci, who in the expression which he gave to his heads, whether male or female had no equal, and who surpassed all other painters in the grace and movement which he imparted to his figures; seeing these works, I say, Raphael stood confounded in astonishment and admiration: the manner of Leonardo pleased him more than any other that he had ever seen, and he set himself zealously to the study thereof with the* utmost zeal; by degrees therefore, abandoning, though not without great difficulty, the manner of Pietro Perugino, he endeavoured as much as was possible to imitate that of Leonardo. But whatever pains he took, and in spite of all
- ↑ Few readers will require to be reminded that the glorious Transfiguration of Raphael is now in the Vatican. It was taken, with others works, to Paris in 1797, and was there cleaned, having become almost indistinguishable. “The painter,” remarks the German annotator, Schorn, had succeeded in expressing the light emanating from the person of Christ, and illuminating those beneath, by a masterly use of chiaro-scuro, but the lampblack having been affected by the lapse of time, much of the original beauty of the work is lost. The head of the apostle Andrew, the figure of the kneeling maiden, and other parts, still remain, nevertheless, to give a fair idea of what the whole has been.” For minute details respecting this work, see Fiorillo, Geschichte der Malerei in Italien. Marco di Figuera, Examen Analitico del Quadro de la Transfiguracion. Constantin, Idees Italiennes sur quelques Tableaux celebres, Florence, 1840; and Rumohr, Italienesche Forschungen. See also Richardson, Account of Statues, Paintings, &c., London, 1722; Duppa, London, 1816; with many other writers, wiio have treated this subject with more or less ability.
