Late Raphael

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

ACTAS DEL CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL

Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, October 2012

Edited by MIGUEL FALOMIR

Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2013

Table of Contents

6 Late Raphael On Cormoisseurshift Authorship and Chronology

MIGUEL FALOMIR

8

The Elusive Raphael PA UL BAROLSKY

14 Raphael Pope Leo X, and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici

SHERYL E. REISS

26 Leonardo and Raphael in Rome in I5IJ- I6

CARMEN C. BAMBACH

38 Raphael and the Decorative Arts

TIMOTHY CLIFFORD

50 Raphael's Tapestries: The Grotesques of Leo X and the Vcttican's Sala dei Pontefici

LORRAINE KARAFEL

58 Raphael's Visitation for Giovanni Battista Branconio: Female Hierarch)', Concord, and Peace

CHRISTA GARDNER VON TEUFFEL

68

Raphael's Vienna Saint Margaret SYLVIA FERINO-PAGDEN

So Da Raffaello a! Sodoma. Sulla camera nuziale diAgostino Chigi alia Farnesina

ROBERTO BARTALINI

90 Raffaello e Sebastiano alia Farnesina

COSTANZA BARBIERI

100

Raffaellino del Colle and Giulio Romano DAVID FRANKLIN

106

Pellegrino da Modena LINDA WOLK-SIMON

n6 Tommaso Vincidor and the Flemish Romanists

JAN SAMMER

126

Timoteo Viti and Raphael ROBERT G. LA FRANCE

136 Gimifrancesco Penni: Designs for Overlooked Panel Paintings

DAY ID LOVE

I 50 Raphael and Titian MIGUEL FALOMIR

156

Raphael's LegaC)' in !tab' circa I6oo CHARLES DEMPSEY

160

El momento de la verdad' TOM HENRY

165 Afterthoughts on Late Raphael

PAUL JOANNIDES

172

BibliographJ'

Timoteo Vi ti and Raphael ROBERT G. LA FRANCE

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

FOR TOO LONG, GIORGIO VASARI HAS DEFINED THE RELA­

tionship between Timoteo Viti and Raphael. Vasari inserted

Viti's biography into the second, 1568 edition of the Lives of the Artists, shortly after the Life of Raphael. Viti's brief story

appears as a coda to the first edition's account of a less talent­

ed painter, Vincenzo Tamagni, also known as Vincenzo da San

Gimignano. In the dual biography's initial paragraph, Vasari

explains that he paired Vincenzo and Timoteo 'essendo stati qua­si in un medesimo tempo et ambidue discepoli et amici di Raffoello' (since they lived almost at one and the same time, and were

both disciples and friends of Raphael). 1 This statement is high­

ly misleading, as Anja Zeller recently noted. 2 Although their

lives overlapped, Vincenzo and Timoteo were not from the

same generation and they did not have the same relationship

with Raphael. Vincenzo (1492-1530) was nine years younger than

Raphael (1483-1520), and his derivative artworks prove that he

was truly a follower. Timoteo (1469-1523), however, was four­

teen years older than Raphael. Indeed, rarely in the history of

art does a substantially older artist become a younger artist's

pupil or follower. As I will demonstrate, Vasari manipulates the

substance, the order, and the duration of events in Viti's life to

minimise Timoteo's Bolognese artistic heritage and promote a

pro-Roman, pro-Raphael agenda.J

Vasari's first step in transforming the elder Viti into a dis­

ciple of the junior Raphael consisted in obscuring Viti's actu­

al training in Bologna. Thanks to Carlo Cesare Malvasia, who

mentioned Viti in his Felsina pittrice, we know that Timoteo

apprenticed with the goldsmith and painter Francesco Raibo­

lini, called Francia (c. 1447-I517), for five years. Malvasia cited Francia's now-lost diary, which recorded Viti's arrival to ap­

prentice with the goldsmiths on 8 July 1490, and his transfer to

the painting studio on 4 September 1491. Malvasia again quot­

ed from the entry for 4 April 1495, when Francia bid farewell

to his dear Timoteo, adding affectionately 'che Dio le dia ogni bene e fortuna' (may God grant him every benefit and fortune). 4

During his apprenticeship in Bologna Viti studied several of

Francia's major commissions, such as the Felicini altarpiece of

1490 [fig. I} and the Bentivoglio altarpiece of 1494, which had, as I will demonstrate, a significant impact on him.S Malvasia's

account contrasts with Vasari's version of events. Vasari mar­

vels that Viti learned to paint 'senza alcuna particolare disciplina di appartato maestro' (without any particular teaching from any

appointed master) and by 'vedendo solamente alcuna fiata a cotali pittori idioti fore le mestiche e adoperare i pennelli' (sometimes see­

ing certain [ignorant painters} making their mixtures and using

their brushes) in Bologna. 6

After misrepresenting Viti's Bolognese training, Vasari

tells us that Timoteo returned to Urbino at the age of twen­

ty-six/ He then proceeds to reduce a productive fifteen-year

period of Viti's life in Urbino into a few months and a few

pictures.8 Vasari quickly shifts his narrative to inform us that

Timoteo 'fu da Raffaello con molta instanza chiamato aRoma' (was invited with great insistence by Raphael to Rome), where

Viti made great advances in little more than a year by paint­

ing with Raphael. Vasari then blunders when he adds that Viti

'lavoro col maestro ne/la chiesa del/a Pace le Sibille di sua mano et invenzione [ ... }'(while working with his master in the church

of Santa Maria della Pace, he made with his own hand and in­

vention the sibyls [ ... }).9 This confusion has plagued the art

historical literature on the frescoes of Agostino Chigi's chapel

in that church, although ever sinceJohann Passavant's famous

monograph, most scholars accept that Raphael invented the

entire decorative programme and executed those figures in

particular. 10 But Vasari's claim that Viti painted the extreme­

ly Raphaelesque sibyls supports the writer's contention that

Timoteo followed a new master. In reality, Viti executed the

little-studied angels and prophets flanking the window on the

upper wall above the chapel. These were restored in the sev­

enteenth century and are difficult to photograph and examine

properly today. 11

Art historians date the Chigi Chapel frescoes to between

I510-14. 12 Judging from Viti's documented absences from

I. Francia (Francesco Raibolini), Madonna and Child with Saints, Felicini altarpiece, 1490, oil on panel, 189 x 164 cm. Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. 583 (Alinari Archives, Florence)

Urbino in 1510, 1511, and again in 1513, Vasari compressed at least three ofViti's Roman trips into a single sojourn. IJ He also made it seem as ifViti were only in his twenties when hear­rived in Rome, and still young enough to accept instruction. With this clever chronological shift, Vasari replaced Timo­teo's actual apprenticeship to Francia with a mythical one to Raphael, which he then characterised as a turning point in Viti's career. Actually, Timoteo was at least forty-one years old when he joined a twenty-six-year-old Raphael in Rome and not likely to have taken lessons from even a divinely talented young man.

Timoteo's experience and elevated social position in 1510

would have made him even less likely to take a subordinate role vis-a-vis Raphael. As Francia's diary reports, Viti returned to Urbino in 1495. At that time, he became the leading artist in that city and effectively replaced Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi (who had died the previous year), as court painter to Duke Guidubaldo da Montefeltro. l4 Viti executed several important commissions during the fifteen-year interval (1495-1510) be-

2. Timoteo Viti, Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Saint Martin ofTours with BishopArrivabene and an Unidentified Donor, Arrivabene altarpiece, 1504, oil on panel, 204 x 156.5 cm. Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, inv. 1990 DE 234 (Alinari Archives, Florence)

fore going to Rome. Vasari even describes and praises several ofTimoteo's commissions for prominent positions in Urbino's cathedral, including the Arrivabene and Magdalene altarpieces, which are documented to 1504 and 1508 respectively {fig. 2}. 15

But he lists these only after sending Viti to purportedly learn from Raphael, and thus has falsely suggested to generations of readers that these and other works were painted under Rapha­el's so-called influence.

Perceiving Vasari's sleight of hand, Giovanni Morelli played a trick of his own and proposed that Viti was actually Rapha­el's teacher. 16 Accepting Morelli's thesis, Berenson concluded that Raphael's genius did not require instruction, which made Viti irrelevant. Like Vasari, Berenson discounted the Bolognese tradition, and considered it something Raphael would have done betterwithout.'7 I do not intend to revisit the century-old debate over Raphael's artistic training here.'8 I will suggest, however, that Vasari's biased categorisation of the artist as an insignificant follower of Raphael has allowed even the most perspicacious of subsequent scholars to ignore Timoteo Viti. 19

127

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to dismiss Vasari's bi­ography completely. Vasari states that he had heard Viti's life story from the painter's youngest son Giovanni Maria, who showed him letters exchanged between Raphael and Timoteo, and gave him three ofhis father's drawings. 20 The letters attest to a close relationship between Timoteo and Raphael: the two

128

J. Raphael, Ansidei Madonna, Ansidei altarpiece, 1505, oil on panel, 216.8 x 147.6 cm. London, National Gallery, inv. NG1171, ©National Gallery, London I Art Resource, NY

painters were friends and they collaborated in Rome. Vasari also mentions several works of art by Viti that still exist. Any clarification and re-examination of the relationship between Timoteo and Raphael should begin by clearly acknowledging, then setting aside, Vasari's anti-Bolognese and pro-Roman

agenda.

ROBERT G. LA FRANCE

4· Francia (Francesco Raibolini), Madonna and Child with Saints, Scappi

altarpiece, c. 1495-1500, oil on panel, 182 x 140 cm. Bologna, Pinacoteca

Nazionale, inv. 571 (Alinari Archives, Florence)

Timoteo and Raphael had much in common. Both the Viti

and Santi families had their origins in Urbino's hinterland: the

Viti in the hamlet ofVilla Ciccoccia, and the Santi in the small

town of Colbordolo. 21 The two artists' fathers were trained pro­

fessionals - Bartolomeo Viti was a barber or surgeon,zz and

Giovanni Santi a painter and poet - who moved to Urbino to

ply their trades, start families, acquire property, and raise their

social status. Their fathers died when they were still children,

and their care was entrusted to uncles with ecclesiastical ca­

reers. ZJ Timoteo and Raphael shared one of the most important

Renaissance bonds; they were countrymen from the city-state

of Urbino and thus enmeshed in the same set of social hierar­

chies, family clans, and political networks. And it is important

to keep in mind that Timoteo had seniority over Raphael in all

these local contexts.

In order to correct Vasari's account, challenge accepted

scholarship, and support a new direction for study, I propose a

simple test ofRaphael's so-called influence on Timoteo Viti.24 I

will examine two ofViti's major altarpiece commissions - one

from before and the other from after his trips to Rome - and

compare them with similar, contemporary works by Raphael.

According to Vasari and the current art-historical model, Viti's

TIMOTEO VITI AND RAPHAEL

5· Perugino, Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints, Decemviri

altarpiece, 1495-96, oil on panel, 193 x 165 cm. Vatican City, Pinacoteca Vaticana, inv. 40317 (Alinari Archives, Florence)

paintings should show his reliance on Raphael's style. While

I admit that the test is crude, and demands a larger sample of

works of art in a variety of formats and functions for a definitive

conclusion, it is highly suggestive. I do think that Viti'sArrivabe­

ne altarpiece, which is documented to 1504, and his Bonaventura

pala, which is likely from as late as rpo, are highly representa­

tive of the artist's style and compositions (figs. 2 and 6}. The first

marks the culmination of Viti's early career, and the second a

high point in his production after his collaboration with Raphael

in Rome.

As Sylvia Ferino demonstrated in 1979, the Arrivabene

altarpiece was painted for the burial chapel of Giovanni Pi­

etro Arrivabene, bishop of Urbino, upon his death in March

1504 (fig. 2}. 25 Documents show that Viti and Girolamo Genga

(q76-I551) received the commission to decorate the chap­

el, but scholars agree that Viti alone painted the altarpiece

representing the Bishop-Saints Martin ofTours and Thomas

Becket, while Genga presumably contributed to the frescoes

depicting scenes from these saints' lives, which are now lost.

There is no evidence that Raphael was involved in the plan­

ning or execution of any part of this commission, which was

mostly carried out while Raphael was in Perugia or Florence

6. Timoteo Viti, Annunciation with Saints John the Baptist and Sebastian, Bonaventura altarpiece, c. 1520, oil on panel, 182 x 260 cm. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera, inv. 507 (Alinari Archives, Florence)

and several years before Timoteo and Raphael worked togeth­er in Rome.

Nonetheless, Viti's Arrivabene altarpiece and Raphael's ear­ly paintings, like the nearly contemporary Ansidei altarpiece of 1505, exhibit some remarkable compositional and stylistic sim­ilarities [figs. 2 and 3}. Both pictures employ stepped platforms to raise the central divine figures. Behind them, an intermedi­ary structure with an open archway frames a landscape view, although Raphael added the architecture at a late stage in the execution.26 Timoteo and Raphael's devotional paintings em­ployvibrant colours and depict saints with pensive expressions placed before landscape backgrounds and beneath phosphores­cent skies - elements of the so-called maniera devota or devout style of painting. Art historians including Giovanni Previtali, Charles Dempsey, and Keith Christiansen have eloquently out­lined this style's origins in Flemish art and its extensive practice by the Bolognese school. 27 Indeed, any similarities in the two

130

7· Raphael, Madonna oJFoligno, 1512, tempera grassa on wood transferred onto canvas, 308 x 198 cm. Vatican City, Pinacoteca Vaticana, inv. 40329 (Alinari Archives, Florence)

artists' styles at this point - and between these two paintings in particular - are probably more coincidental than causal. The two men came from a similar artistic context, although nearly a generation apart. Their styles generally respond to the art of the same group of northern and central Italian masters from the end of the fifteenth and dawn of the sixteenth centuries, specifically Francia, Perugino (Pietro Vanucci, c. 1450-1523),

and Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523). Echoes of Viti's early training and a lifelong allegiance to

his teacher Francia, a great master of the maniera devota, reveal themselves in comparisons between his paintings and Fran­cia's major works, such as the Scappi altarpiece (c. 1495-1500) [fig. 4].28 Despite their very different subjects and composi­tions, the Arrivabene and Scappi pale share an essentially tri­partite division, with figures placed on a dais across the fore­ground, a screen of arches in the middle ground, and a deep landscape background [figs. 2 and 4]. Viti adopted Francia's way

ROBERT G. LA FRANCE

8. Francia (Francesco Raibolini), Annunciation with Saints John the Evangelist, Francis, Bernardino, and George, 1500, oil on panel, 303 x 198 cm. Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. 575 (Alinari Archives, Florence)

of shaping faces with widely spaced eyes, small mouths, high

cheekbones, ruddy cheeks, and broad mandibles; like Fran­

cia, he often cocked his figures' heads at eccentric angles. Also

like Francia, Viti adored abundant, luxurious drapery. In other

paintings, Viti borrowed Francia's highly affected poses as well.

After learning the maniera devota in Bologna, Viti returned

to Urbino and central Italy. His Arrivabene altarpiece also owes

much to Perugino's Decemviri pala (1495-96) in Perugia, from

its sparsely ornamented architecture to the idea for the step

and platform [figs. 2 and 5}. Variations in the two paintings indi­

cate subtle differences in the artists' approaches to the maniera devota, however. Perugino's delicate figures perform a decorous,

if repetitive, dance in their colourful robes, while Viti's heavier

bodies are firmly planted and more opulently dressed. If both

altarpieces were sacred musical compositions, then Perugi­

no's would be soft and feature an annoying refrain, while Viti's

would be richer and sonorous.

TIMOTEO VITI AND RAI'IIAEL

And if Viti and Perugino's paintings are different religious

songs, then Raphael's altarpiece is a complex variation on Perug­

ino's, with tropes in the style of Luca Signorelli [figs. 3 and 5P9

Notice how Raphael borrows Perugino's throne structure, but

reverses the large and the small steps and replaces its arched

crown with a flat frieze and baldachin, while keeping its scrolls

and palmettes.3° In general, the relationship between Perugino's

paintings and Raphael's work at this time is the fruit of Rapha­

el's recent study with the Perugian master, and any similarities

between Raphael's and Timoteo's altarpieces pale in comparison.

Thus, the Arrivabene pala and Raphael's early altarpieces share

the same sources; but neither clearly emulates or 'influences' the

other. Viti owes a further debt to Signorelli. Ferino also identified

a study at the Albertina in Vienna as Timoteo's design for the

Arrivabene Chapel's central fresco scene (now lost) of Saint Martin exorcising a Possessed Cow. This pen and ink drawing was

formerly attributed to Signorelli, to whom Berenson ascribed

several ofViti's related individual figure studies of male nudes.JI

This is not surprising, since Viti drew these for frescoes paint­

ed in partnership with Signorelli's former pupil, Genga, only a

few years after the inauguration of strikingly similar figures in

Signorelli's San Brizio Chapel in Orvieto.

A brief examination of the Arrivabene Chapel's unusual

iconography also contributes to our understanding ofViti as an

independent artistic personality. Bishop Arrivabene had sup­

ported Pope Alexander VI and his son Cesare Borgia before

their devastating campaign to dominate central Italy. When

Urbino returned from Borgia to Montefeltro control in 1503,

the bishop found himself in the awkward position of explain­

ing his past allegiances. He specified the subjects for the burial

chapel in his will. Viti represented Saint Martin's horned cow

as a rampant bull trampling the green fields, just like the Bor­

gia emblem so prominently featured in Alexander's papal and

Cesare's ducal coats of arms. In 1504, in the wake of the Borgia

retreat from Urbino, this allegorical imagery clearly associat­

ed the bishop with Saint Martin, and implied that Arrivabene

had encouraged the saint to remove the devil from the Borgia

family bull. Viti's novel, heraldic allegory bolstered the bishop's

efforts to exculpate himself in the eyes of the Montefeltro and

the citizens ofUrbinoY For the second part of my test, I will compare Viti's

Bonaventura altarpiece to Raphael's Madonna of Foligno [figs. 6

and 7}. Many scholars consider this Timoteo's most Raphae­

lesque painting, and undeniably, the two pictures have much

in common.JJ Both subscribe to the maniera devota formula of

saints decorously arranged before a deep landscape and a lu­

minous sky. Here, at last, there may be a smoking gun. Rapha­

el painted the Madonna of Foligno in 1512. Viti's altarpiece was

painted well after 1508 and most probably as late as 1520.34

I support a later dating for several reasons, not the least of

131

which is that the altarpiece and its preparatory drawings un­equivocally illustrate Viti's adoption of a so-called second or late style.J5 Indeed, the monumental saints show a new ap­proach to the representation of volume - as compared to the figures in the Arrivabene altarpiece - which likely emerged after Viti's trips to Rome, his exposure to Raphael's circle, and what Vasari considered Viti's second apprenticeship. Thus, at first glance, it appears that Timoteo quotes Raphael's figure of Saint John in his Bonaventura altarpiece, and reprises the Ma­donna of Foligno's bipartite composition.J6

Raphael's Saint John, however, is not unique, and neither is his composition. After Timoteo returned to Urbino from Rome, he still derived inspiration from his Bolognese master. The more decorous, attenuated Saint John in Francia's Felicini altarpiece - which like Viti's Bonaventura picture also pairs Saints John and Sebastian - is a more plausible model for Vi­ti's saint than Raphael's wild-haired, muscular Baptist [figs. r and 6}. Moreover, Timoteo's entire composition and iconog­raphy rely not on Raphael, but on Francia's Annunciation with Saints John the Evangelist, Francis, Bernardino, and George, painted in 1500 for the high altar of the Franciscan Observants at the church of the Annunziata in Bologna, and now in that city's Pinacoteca [figs. 6 and 8}.37 Viti reversed the figures of the Vir­gin and Gabriel, but he preserved the hybrid Mariocentric ico­nography, which combines the Annunciation with a sacra con­versazione. Alessandra Galizzi Kroegel has demonstrated that the Franciscan Observants in Bologna interpreted this unor­thodox juxtaposition of themes as a precocious representation of the Virgin's Immaculate Conception, and that this imagery appealed to the Observants in Urbino as well.

The magnitude of the change in Viti's style, and the final point of my Raphael test, is visible even in reproductions of the Bonaventura altarpiece [fig. 6}. This post-Roman work displays a sensitive chiaroscuro combined with weightier figures and muscular bodies that vaguely recall antique sculp­ture. For example, Viti folded back the shoulder of Saint John's hair shirt to better reveal his anatomy, a novelty that­along with Sebastian's nude figure- Vasari praised.38 Perhaps, in Saint Sebastian's bared flesh and wiry torso we can best de­tect Viti's experience alongside Raphael, and his willingness to alter his style and adopt the fuller, monumental, classicising bodies he had seen in contemporary art in Rome. Yet to my eye, Viti's contradictory obsession with idealised figures ren­dered in fastidious, even microscopic detail only intensifies an earlier practice. He afforded the same attention to the me­ticulous depiction of textiles and landscape in his Arrivabene altarpie<;e, which is very different from Raphael's late work. I would also like to point out a signature element that is Vi­ti's alone. A sinuous vine wraps around Saint Sebastian's tree trunk as a metaphorical, visual pun on the artist's family name ofViti or del/a vite (of the vine).

132

Although there are several Raphaelesque elements in Vi­ti's second style, these are not sufficient to label Timoteo as Raphael's disciple or follower. In the Bonaventura altarpiece, Viti chose to reiterate figures, compositions, and subjects that he had seen in Bologna, rather than imitate Raphael's models.39

While Viti did incorporate minor aspects of Raphael's Roman style, such as a newfound figural monumentality and corre­sponding chiaroscuro, he uses these to update his own brand of the tranquil Bolognese maniera devota, and rejects the increas­ing drama ofRaphael's late paintings.

Like the works examined here, several other examples of Viti's paintings and drawings persistently refute Vasari's thesis that Raphael was Timoteo's master.4o The senior Viti was nev­er the junior Raphael's disciple, follower, or pupil. 4' Rather, the two artists shared sources and practiced variations on a com­mon devout style learned from Francia and Perugino. Indeed, Viti links Francia and the Bolognese school to Raphael. 42 I wonder whether Raphael called Timoteo to Rome because he valued Viti's Bolognese experience.

Any reconstruction ofViti's small corpus of surviving paint­ings and large number of extant drawings should rest upon a new conceptual framework. Timoteo Viti was his own man. His life and art are interconnected with those of his younger countryman Raphael, but he developed his style both earlier than and in tandem with Raphael - not as a simple follower or disciple. Other words more accurately describe Timoteo's relationship to Raphael, such as elder contemporary, friend, collaborator, and fellow painter-courtier. It is useful to recall that although Raphael is a topic of discussion in Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, Viti was the actual - yet un­mentioned - resident artist of the court of Duke Guidubaldo da Montefeltro in the fall of rso6, when that fictionalised tale purportedly took place.43

Raphael's virtue and fame are undeniable, but Viti's ac­complishments deserve consideration as well. For example, an eighteenth-century A/hero del/a nobile famiglia Viti (Tree of the Noble Viti Family) illustrates one area in which Timoteo succeeded and Raphael failed. Viti fulfilled every Renaissance man's dream of producing heirs, creating an estate, and passing his patrimony down for several generations. Raphael died un­married and childless, his possessions scattered. Timoteo's son Piero Viti (also called Piervita, a name that emphasises the fam­ily's metaphorical, living vine) became a painter, his grandson Pierantonio a knight, and his great grandson Timoteo a priest and poet.44

Finally, Raphael's artistic legacy owes a debt to Timoteo and his progeny. Although scholars have yet to fill in the de­tails, Timoteo obtained several Raphael drawings through gift or inheritance. The Viti family handed these precious documents down to their successors, the Antaldi of Pesaro, who marked many sheets with the initials R.V. and T.V.V.

ROBERT G . LA FRANCE

(Raphael Urbinas and presumably Timoteus Vitis Urbinas),

before selling most of them to French and English collectors

in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Anna Forlani

Tempesti has shown, the Viti-Antaldi collection constitutes

an important share of the Raphael and Viti drawings at the

Ashmolean Museum, the British Museum, and Pesaro's Bib­lioteca Oliveriana.45

How should we remember Timoteo? Not as a facile prop­

agator of Raphael's style, nor as a slavish imitator of Rapha­

el's models. Rather, we may recall Viti as a pupil of Francia,

I would like to thank the fellows and staff at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti in 2009-Io, where I began work on this topic, and my former University of Illinois colleague Jeryldene Wood for reading an early draft of this essay. I have also benefited greatly from collaborations with Pro£ Bonita Cleri of the Universita degli Studi di Urbino 'Carlo Bo', andAreli Marina's constant encouragement. Finally, I am grateful to Tom Henry, PaulJoannides, and Miguel Falomir for organising and inviting me to this conference, as well as the Campus Research Board at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for critical funding.

I Vasari I966-87, IV, p. 263 (Vasari I996, I, pp. n6-n). In the I550 edition, Vasari uses the Life ofVincenzo da San Gimignano as a vehicle to demonstrate how important the 'air of Rome' and ancient sculpture were for the develop­ment of painters and sculptors. In the I568 edition that becomes a sub-theme, and Vasari shifts emphasis in the revised and expanded double biography to the sanctification of the 'divine' Raphael by assigning the artist quasi-apostol­ic disciples.

• Zeller 2007b, p. I3, and Zeller 2007a, pp. 118-I9, n. 33· More than a century ago, Giovanni Morelli raised the first doubts about Vasari's story (seen. I6).

3 For Vasari's general anti-Bolognese sentiment and pro-Raphael agen­da, see the classic essay by Charles Dempsey (Dempsey I986, pp. 65-67), which is fundamental to my approach. This theme is echoed in Vasari's pa­tently false anecdote in the Life of Francia, in which the sight of Raphael's Santa Cecilia hastens Francia's death and humbles the presumptuous paint­ers of the Bolognese school.

4 Malvasia 1841, 1, p. 52. See Cleri 2009, p. 75, and the vindication of Mal­vasia's scholarship and trustworthiness when citing now-lost documents in Dempsey 1986, p. 61, and the volumes of the Malvasia series in Cropper and Pericolo 2012.

5 See Negro and Roio 1998, pp. 134-38, cat. 8, and 14I-42, cat. 11, with bibliography.

6 Vasari 1966-87, IV, p. 266 (Vasari 1996, 1, p. 779). In the sixteenth cen­tury the term 'idiota' generally meant ignorant and unlettered, and indeed Vasari considered Bolognese painters prideful, improperly trained, and ig­norant in the matters of art. See Accademia della Crusca I612, p. 4I2, as well as n. 3 above. In addition, Vasari makes Francia look ridiculous by relating Michelangelo's opinion of that artist as 'gojfo' or foolish. See Dempsey 1986, pp. 67 and 70, n. 78, as well as Barolsky 1991, pp. 13-14· Remarkably, de Vere missed this point and translated 'pittori idiotP as 'painters of no account,' which I have corrected here.

7 'Tomato dunque a/la patria gia uomo di ventisei anni, vi si fermo per a/cuni mesi { ... }'in Vasari 1966-87, IV, p. 267 (Vasari I996, 1, p. 779). Despite Vasari's

TIMOTEO VITI AND RAPJ-JAEL

as Giovanni Santi's successor as court artist in Urbino, as an

innovator who designed the anti-Borgia imagery of the Arriv­

abene Chapel, and as the head of a vital family that preserved

many of Raphael's drawings for posterity. He also served as a

bridge between Raphael and the Bolognese school, and prac­

ticed his own formulation of the maniera devota. Examining

Viti's career not only helps us to correct Vasari and redefine

one painter's relationship with Raphael, but may also open

fresh vistas on the development and reception of Raphael's

style.

unreliability concerning the chronology ofViti's life (see below), this state­ment appears to be the main source for Viti's birthdate: twenty-six years of age calculated backwards from I495 (the date that Malvasia reports for Viti leaving Bologna) equals I469. But Vasari also states at the end of the dou­ble biography that Viti died in I524 at the age of fifty-four, meaning that the painter was born in 14 70. Consequently, many sources give Viti's date of birth as 1469/70. A confraternal document records Viti's death in October 1523, which combined with the age reported by Vasari, supports the 1469 birth date. The document is cited in the generally reliable Pungileoni 1835, p. 66, n. a, and p. 108, but is not confirmed by Falcioni 2008, pp. 5-72.

8 Vasari only mentions three of Viti's paintings from this period: the Madonna and Child with Saints Crescentinus and Vitalis or Donninus (c. 1495, oil on canvas, 168 x 165 cm, Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera, inv. 508); possibly The Trinity with Saint Jerome and Blessed Giovanni Colombini (n.d., oil on canvas, 14 7 x I44 cm, Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, inv. 1990 DE 236, on deposit from the Brera); and SaintApo//onia (n.d., oil on canvas, 131 x 70 cm, Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, inv. 1990 D71).

9 Vasari 1966-87, IV, p. 267 (Vasari 1996, 1, p. 780). De Vere's translation from context clearly relays Vasari's intention that Viti was working with his new master, whereas a recent German translation preserves the more generic 'zusammen mit dem Meister' (together with the master), which still privileges the younger Raphael as the master painter of the two; see Vasari

2007, p. 24. 10 See Hirst I961, p. I67 and n. 33, as well as the summary of scholarly

opinions outlined inAgostini 1983, pp. 130-31. In my view, Timoteo assisted Raphael with the frescoes of the sibyls, and since Viti had studied Greek, perhaps he added their Greek inscriptions; see La France 2008, p. 209.

" Illustrated in black and white in ]ones and Penny 1983, p. 99, and in colour in Madrid and Paris 2012, pp. 41-42, fig. 22, where Henry andJoan­nides also conclude that Viti painted the prophets.

'2 1512-14, as discussed in Hirst 1961, pp. 165-68, and the summary in

Agostini 1983, p. 130. The problem of the chapel's dating persists, with a re­cent argument proposing the earlier dates of 1510-11 for Viti's involvement; see London 2004-5, p. 58.

' 3 Falcioni 2008, pp. I4-I5 and n. 40, and Cleri 2009, p. 76, correct the date of the third trip as first gleaned from documents by Pungileoni 1835, p. 105. The periods ofTimoteo's absences from Urbino, when he was pre­sumably with Raphael in Rome, are: May to November Ipo;January to July I511i and March through September 1513.

14 London 2004-5, p. 18. The duke's name appears written in various sources as Guidobaldo or Guidubaldo, a compound derived from the con­junction of the first name of the duke's grandfather Guido and that of St Ubaldus, patron of Gubbio. I prefer the spelling Guidubaldo for two main reasons. Firstly, Italian compound names tend to truncate the final vowel

133

from the first word, i.e., Guido + Antonio = Guidantonio, or Piero + Anto­nio = Pierantonio. Secondly, although variations on Guidobaldo do occur in some sixteenth-century texts, that spelling seems an inappropriate An­glicism preferred by English-speaking audiences and writers, such as James Dennistoun.

' 5 On The Penintent Mary Magdalene (I5o8, oil on panel, I9I x n6 cm, Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, inv. I990 DE 235), see Ferriani I983, p. 285, cat. 83.

'6 Morelli I883, esp. pp. 300-1.

'7 Berenson I952, p. I66: 'Timoteo Viti has left two pictures - the "Mag­dalen," at Bologna, and the ''Annunciation," at Milan, which, as figure art, are perhaps as good as any of Francia's. It is not these, however, that earn him mention here. His importance is due to the fact that it was he who first taught Raphael, and that it was through him that the boy genius inherited many of the traditions which, in however enfeebled a form, had been hand­ed down from the grand patriarch, Tura. It needs scarcely be said that, in the condition in which it reached Raphael, it was a heritage he might have done well not to take up. At all events, it would have stood him in no stead if he had not added to it the wealth of Florence.' Thus, Berenson dismisses Viti's significant position in Urbino and, combined with his condemnation ofFrancia as lacking 'universal genius,' reaffirms Vasari's agenda.

' 8 Raphael's presumed apprenticeship period in Urbino and Perugia, between I495 and the contract for his lost Coronation of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino altarpiece in I500, remains controversial today. According to Fe­rino-Pagden I984c, p. 7J, Morelli's thesis was refuted by the influential (yet highly problematic) article by Roberto Longhi (Longhi I955). Compare the summaries of Raphael's early years in London 2004-5, pp. I5-65; Mancini 2006, pp. n-24; and Butler 2009, pp. I5-39·

' 9 A general disregard for the artist continues despite Vasari's biased account, Berenson's suspect reasoning, and the lack of an adequate mono­graph -pace Moroni 2007.

'0 Zeller 2007b, p. IJ. One of the drawings has been identified as the

Study of Saint John the Evangelist sleeping (also known as Jeune homme drape, allonge iz terre, endormt), Paris, Musee Louvre, inv. 6793. See Paris I983-84a, p. I6, cat. ro, and Ragghianti I974, I, p. I06, and II, p. I66, fig. 3I9.

" On Villa Ciccoccia, see Moroni 2007, p. I5. The Viti family is docu­mented throughout Pungileoni I835 and Falcioni 2008, pp. 5-72, whereas the outlines of Raphael's life are well known and documented in Shearman 2003. For the centralisation of the Montefeltro state in the fifteenth centu­ry, which included the migration of many professionals to the administrative centre ofUrbino, see Damiani I986, pp. 9-23.

" Falcioni 2008, pp. 9 and 26, doe. I5. 'J Don Giovanni Paolo di Piero at Villa Ciccoccia acted as guardian for

his nephews Pompilio and Timoteo Viti; see Falcioni 2008, pp. IO and 46, doe. 75·

' 4 A review of the 2009 Raphael exhibition in Urbino disappointedly summarises the state of the Viti question. 'It is difficult to assess if [Viti} had any influence on the young Raphael, {as} the works in the exhibition { ... }' (and the reviewer specifically cites the Arrivabene altarpiece) 'reveal Viti's debt to Raphael rather than vice versa'; Silvestrelli 2009, p. 494· In my opinion, this typical scholarly view still bears the mark ofVasari's dis­tortions.

' 5 Ferino I979, pp. I27-44· Giovanni Pietro Arrivabene was bishop of Urbino from I49I until his death in I504· Previously, he had served as a pro­tonotary and secretary to three popes, as well as a papal emissary to King Ferdinand of Naples. His will earmarked roo gold ducats for a tomb and chapel decoration in Urbino's cathedral. For a partial Italian translation of Arrivabene's will, see Cleri 2005, pp. 407-26; for the bishop's biography, see Chambers I984, pp. 397-438; and for a recent catalogue entry on the altar­piece, see Ferriani 2009, pp. I40-I, cat. I8, with bibliography. The chapel's frescoes were whitewashed around I6I0-20 (Cleri 2009, p. 75) and presum­ably destroyed in the I789 earthquake.

'6 See Cooper and Plazzotta 2004, pp. 720-3I, and Cooper and Plazzotta

2oo6, pp. 7I-ro2.

134

'7 Previtali I964, pp. I6-2I; Dempsey I986, p. 67; and Christiansen I998, PP· 39-62.

'8 Negro and Roio I998, pp. I46-47, cat. I5.

'9 Raphael studied Signorelli's Vagnucci altarpiece of I483-84 in the chapel of Saint Onuphrius in Perugia Cathedral; see Cooper and Plazzotta 2006, pp. 74-76.

3o The throne is nearly identical in the preliminary drawing in Frankfurt, Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, inv. 376; see Cooper and Plazzotta 2006, p. 76.

3' For the Albertina drawing (inv. I458) and other examples, see Birke and Kertesz I992-97. II, p. 779, with bibliography; Ferino I979, pp. I27-44; and Ferino-Pagden I982, pp. I3I-3J·

3' My new interpretation of the Arrivabene Chapel's iconography is an addition to Ferino's analysis, and will be more fully explicated in a forthcom­ing publication.

33 The current scholarly consensus regards the Bonaventura altarpiece and the Noli me tangere in the church ofSant'Angelo Minore in Cagli as Timo­teo's most Raphaelesque works. For the Bonaventura altarpiece, see Droghi­ni 2003, pp. I82-83, with bibliography. For the painting in Cagli, see Vastano 2009, pp. I42-43, cat. I9, with bibliography.

H Uncertainty concerning the Bonaventura altarpiece's date of execu­tion is largely based on problematic assessments ofViti's style arising from Vasari's misleading chronology of the artist's life and a complete lack of doc­umentation for the commission. Galizzi Kroegel 2003, p. 51, n. I4, and 62-65, which is summarised in Galizzi Kroegel2oo8, p. 126, wisely avoids the stylistic conundrum by proposing the date of I5o8, which corresponds with a ducal grant of privileges to Giovanni Battista and Sebastiano Bonaven­tura, whose patron saints appear in the altarpiece (see Michelangeli I999, p. 3I). Galizzi assumes that the family gained patronage of the chapel at that moment and Viti immediately painted the altarpiece. Yet patronage rights were often contested, usually involved protracted negotiations, and Urbino underwent a period of crisis and capture during the pontificate of Leo X (ISI3-2I), all of which plausibly delayed the commission and execution of the altarpiece until well after Viti had returned from Rome. Admitting a lack of documentation, Pungileoni I835, pp. 54-55, nonetheless places the Bonaven­tura altarpiece late in Viti's career, and proposes a possible date of Ipo.

35 Ferriani 2009, p. 3I9i Cleri I992, pp. 2I3-I5i Cleri 2009, p. 76, and oth­ers have observed that the painting's style is far more advanced than that of Viti's Madonna and Child with Saints Crescentinus and Vitalis or Donninus (c. I495) or the Arrivabene altarpiece (I504). They support a date of execu­tion for the Bonaventura altarpiece after Viti had collaborated with Rapha­el in Rome. A compositional study for the altarpiece is in Rome (Galleria Nazionale delle Stampe, inv. F. C. I27633); a preparatory cartoon for Saint Sebastian's upper half is in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 66.53.5); and I believe that the lovely black chalk drawing of a Head of a WOman looking Down in London (British Museum, inv. I946-7-I3-583) is for the Virgin in the Bonaventura altarpiece. See Ferino-Pagden I984b, p. 77 il­lus.; Bean and Turcic I?82, pp. 266-67, cat. 27I, illus.; and Pouncey and Gere I962, p. I 55, cat. 263, pi. 245.

36 Ferino-Pagden I984b, p. n, followed by Gabrielli 2008, pp. 232- 33, and others, write that Timoteo's figure derives from Raphael's Saint John in the Madonna of Foligno.

3 Galizzi Kroegel 2003, pp. 47-72; Galizzi Kroegel 2005, pp. 215-5I; as well as Negro and Roio I998, pp. I47-49, cat. I7.

38 '{ ••• } sono dallato destro il Battista vestito d'una pelle di camelo, squarciata a studio per mostrare il nudo del/a figura, e dal sinistro un San Sebastiano tutto nudo, legato con bel/a attitudine a un arbore, e fotto con tanta diligenza che non potrebbe aver pili rilievo ne essere in tutte le parti piri bello.' Vasari I966-87, IV, p. 268 (Vasari I996, II, p. 78I). The fine detail and careful preparation apparent in these works also belies the recent conjecture that Viti added secondary, roughly-finished figures to paintings produced in Raphael's workshop; com­pare Madrid and Paris 20I2, p. I87.

39 Marco Carminati, 'Viti, Timoteo', in Grove Art Online, http://www.ox­fordartonline.com [accessed 3I December 20I2} asserts that in later works, like the Bonaventura altarpiece, Viti 'rejected Raphael's influence and

ROBERT G. LA FRANCE

looked back to the art of the late 15th century.' While it is possible that the patron requested the c. 1500 Immaculist iconography (seen. 37 above), Viti's

return to Francia's prototypes is more a consistent practice than a rejection

ofRaphael's models. 4° CompareJoannides 2002, pp. 90-91. One of the purposes of this essay

is to challenge the persistent, a priori attribution of drawings after Raphael's designs to Timoteo Viti. Perhaps Timoteo's son, Piervita (see below), who

undoubtedly revered both his father's and Raphael's models, is a possible

candidate as the author of some egregious copies and lower-quality draw­

ings attributed to Timoteo. For examples, see Pouncey and Gere 1962, pp.

173-74, cats. 289-90, and Nesi 2008, pp. 383-425. 4' Compare Madrid and Paris 2012, p. 41. Furthermore, the complexi­

ty, inventiveness, and inherent quality ofViti's work - as apparent in the

Arrivabene and Bonaventura altarpieces - also negates any comparison to

derivative paintings by followers such as Berto di Giovanni (c. 1475-c. 1529)

or DomenicoAlfani (c. 1479/8o-after 1553). 4' Aside from Viti, the main evidence of a connection between Raphael

and Francia rests on Malvasia's report in the Felsina pittrice of an exchange

Tlli-IOTEO VITI AND RAPHAEL

of sonnets, letters, drawings, and portraits (all lost). See Dempsey 1986, pp.

57-67, and Negro and Roio 1998, pp. 62 and 66, n. 13; as well as Shearman 2003, pp. 17-18, on Malvasia's 'deception'. In addition, Negro and Roio 1998, p. r88, cat. 62, argue that a painting at Angers (Musee des Beaux-Arts, inv.

]339) is the self-portrait that Francia sent to Raphael. 43 A fact also mentioned by Vasari, who owned Viti's portrait sketch of

Giuliano de' Medici. See Vasari 1996, r, p. 782; Vasari 1966-87, rv, p. 269; and Madrid and Paris 2012, p. 265.

H Padre Piergirolamo Vernaccia's eighteenth-century holograph of the

Viti family tree can be found in: Alberi genealogici delle illustre fomiglie urbi­

nati, Urbino, Biblioteca Universitaria, Fondo del Comune us, no. 9· While its outlines are correct, some details of the branches appear unreliable when

compared to the recent tree published in Falcioni 2008, p. 6. I am develop­

ing a new genealogy that considers the artist's maternal relations; see Wood

2005, p. 173· 45 Forlani Tempesti 2001a, pp. 153-57, and Forlani Tempesti 2oorb, pp.

XXXIX-XLVIII.

135