ROME, March 4, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Italy is marking 500 years since the
death of Renaissance master Raphael with a blockbuster exhibition whose
preparations were marred by a row over a treasured portrait some feared was
too fragile to move.
The show at Rome’s imposing Scuderie del Quirinale presidential palace
includes 200 works by the prolific painter, designer and architect, a child
prodigy who died aged only 37 in 1520.
Experts are deeply divided over a portrait of Pope Leo X with two
cardinals belonging to the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, the Renaissance
capital which lent a quarter of the works going on display in Rome from
Thursday through June 2.
Painted in burgundy reds and blood orange between 1518 and 1519, the
stunning work caused a sensation at the time for its revolutionary group
portraiture concept.
The Uffizi’s scientific committee decided that the 154 by 119 centimetre
(61 by 47 inch) painting was too fragile to make the trip to Rome.
All four members of the committee resigned last week over a decision by
the gallery’s German director Eike Schmidt to override their ruling and add
the painting to the Rome show.
In a letter published in the daily La Repubblica, the committee noted that
the portrait was on a list of 24 “immovable” works the Uffizi had drawn up in
December.
The quarrel followed three years of gruelling work aimed at putting
together a retrospective befitting a master who was part of a trinity of
Renaissance greats along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.
The show will feature works from a hit parade of world-class museums: the
Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, the Prado in Madrid and
Washington’s National Gallery.
Some of its most famous paintings include the Madonna of the Rose, painted
in Raphael’s trademark pastel colours; the striking green and red Portrait of
Pope Julius II; and the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, a pyramidal
composition in elegant earth tones.
– Red rose –
Raphael was sent off with high honours at a grand funeral at the Vatican,
and his remains rest in the Rome Pantheon. A red rose graces his grave year-
round.
In addition to the Rome exhibit, the anniversary is also being marked with
shows in Urbino, the walled city in central Italy where the master was born,
and Milan.
His famous tapestries woven in Bruges and depicting events from the lives
of saints Peter and Paul have been hung in the Sistine Chapel, their intended
home from the start.
Despite his premature death, Raphael produced a vast amount of seminal
work, much of it at the Vatican, whose museums include several rooms filled
with his frescoes.
They are mesmerising but unfinished, just hinting at his true genius.
Completed by Raphael’s students after his death and depicting the great
philosophers in Athens — including a cheeky cameo of himself — they remain
some of the Vatican’s most popular rooms.
Raphael left behind a “heritage of invaluable beauty”, Pope Francis said
in January.
“As the artist’s genius knows how to harmoniously compose the materials,
colours and sounds to be a part of a single work of art, so diplomacy calls
on the state to build a world of justice and peace, which is the most
beautiful picture we can admire,” the Argentine-born pontiff said.
The retrospective, proclaimed by the Uffizi director as the largest and
most important ever dedicated to Raphael, is already breaking records.
Devotees from around the world have pre-ordered 70,000 tickets, despite
Italy bearing the brunt of the new coronavirus scare in Europe.
The Italian government is now mulling a series of new crowd control
measures to stem the spread of the COVID-19 disease, which has killed 79
people in Italy in two weeks.