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Consider the common themes in the Vasari extracts and the 4 descriptions from contemporary writing.

I have extended this task to include Vasari because I thought that would help me more. I find the task as set rather leading since it presumes the identity as Christ that might be being built around Raphael’s person in all the accounts, although I have yet to read the discussion. Having read them again and again, I do not find clear evidence of such an identification in the 4 accounts exactly contemporary to the death, other than might be prefigured in the notion of Christ as the new Adam (as humanity transfigured by His redemptive function).

In Vasari however there seems to be a daring identification of Raphael as an exemplum of ‘possessors of rare and numerous gifts’ as one of the ‘mortal gods’. Hedged around with the signs that this might be blasphemous since Christ is as near as Christianity gets to a ‘mortal god’ (a god that can die), we still have to remember that Vasari cannot be evoking Christ as such because Christ is not one of many ‘mortal gods’ in Christianity. And then the extract offered leaves out the sentence qualifying the possible blasphemy. That continuation makes it clear that the immortality secured by Raphael (and his like) is because of the endurable remnants of himself that he (and they) have left on earth as support to his ‘honoured name’. Is it not possible then that this discourse is not about the artist as immortal but the endurance through time of his works (including Art)? I think such an interpretation possible, even in Vasari.

Of course Vasari makes this clear in his account of the Transfiguration. Our translation calls this picture ‘divine’ but both the Penguin and Oxford Classics translation prefer ‘inspired’ for this term. We need the Renaissance Italian, but even then we might fail to understand the nuance of the term, so distant is that version of it from even contemporary Italian. I am pretty certain however, that though Raphael may be said to be like Christ, he is not identified with Him but is instead shown to be enduring because he raises Art to the level of the comprehension of the divine and the godly in the Christian Trinity:

The role of Art here is to ally itself with Godhead. It is not the role of Raphael. That, at least, would be my reading. I think this is evident too in Castiglione’s account of Raphael who insists that Raphael is not merely a great artist or is so only because he facilitates a revelation of what Art can and ought to be doing (Castiglione / Bull 1976: 98f.).

To be clear about the consequences of this, the treatment of death (the sure sign of mortality) in a ‘Life’ story is clearly crucial. I think Vasari makes it clear that Raphael is not the new but the old Adam – a man who chooses violent excess and secrecy in his sexual life is not Christ. He fears even to admit his own humanity – a very UnChristlike thing – until he must confess in his last office. He is a ‘good Christian’ at the end but not Christ and he dies as a Christian must, without, at and up to this time, rebirth. However he pays witness to the reborn Christ through his ‘perfect Art’ as we have seen. His soul’s immortality in heaven is at the end compared not with his person but with that with which ‘he embellished the world’.

Although this may seem like nit-picking, I think it important that the myth of Raphael’s perfection is seen not, by his contemporaries, as like Christ but in using himself and his art in that service. Too like mortal men who only act properly when they know how to act, Raphael’s secrecy and excess (however much Vasari admires that) was the source of his death, which proves him mortal, whilst allowing art the chance still of immortality – enduringness beyond death. Remember that Vasari does not see redemption of sin in Raphael’s story but only the ability of art to ‘efface any vice, however hideous, and any blot, were it ever so great.’ That claim does not elevate Raphael into the superhuman but rather forgives him for his humanity.

So, if we turn to the very contemporary accounts, I find little that makes him Christ-like. I sneaked a peek at the account that follows this exercise and find nothing in this extract from Lippomani (10 April) that justifies the construction of the extrapolation – ‘as if God planned it this way’. Maybe the justification for this reading is in the hidden discussion. I’ll see. There is the potential of seeing Raphael as Christ in Pico’s (7 April) letter that states without doubt that ‘ The heavens sent warning’, but even then we may not be reading the tone of this statement correctly. After all, Pico, a courtier, is writing (with ‘wit’ – which means with the use of rhetorical figures - as the Renaissance courtier must) to the Duchess herself. Both would use language that emphasises and elevates art. What our lives Raphael is not a reborn self but a ‘second life’ that is equated with Fame. I think Sir Walter Raleigh would have known how to read this – is it formal hyperbole – in ways we do not.

As for the worldly Michiel (6 April) in private to his diary he notes only the importance of Raphael in terms of his wealth and his scholarship (without even mentioning his Art). He laments his unfinished scholarly tome on Rome rather than the promise of future Art. Of course, by the 11 April and writing to a fellow courtier, he has heard the rumour (he says it as that) of the heaven-sent warnings but makes sure we understand that these may really be more to do with ‘the weight of the porticoes on the door’ – again with great weight. What will immortalise Raphael, as Castiglione, would have understood is the transfiguration of his reputation into art – ‘moving and perpetual compositions’ says he wittily and perhaps not a little sarcastically (possibly).

So my account does not seem what is prefigured for me in this task but I’ll now see by looking at the hidden discussion.

One issue with these accounts of course that Raphael is said variously in them to die at the age of 33, 34 & (in Vasari) 37. In a numerological age, fixing on one might be important for establishing a commonly held myth.

All then best

Steve