The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Theft, satire, intrigue and revenge…
The bitter rivalry between Raphael and Michelangelo created some of Rome’s greatest sights – and here’s how to see them, says Nick Trend
There is no doubt that the great Renaissance painter, Raphael, was a charmer. His earliest biographer, Giorgio Vasari, is gushing in his assessment of a man who possessed “all the rarest qualities of the mind, accompanied by such grace, industry, beauty, modesty and excellence of character, as would have sufficed to efface any vice”. He was also, as a new exhibition at the National Gallery makes clear, much more than a painter. He designed sculpture, architecture, tapestries and frescos as well as making powerful portraits, sensual nudes and highly-intellectual religious pictures. But this talented smoothy was not above a bit of skullduggery – especially when it came to his closest rival, Michelangelo.
It might have been a beautiful friendship. In 1508, Raphael and Michelangelo were Italy’s most brilliant young artists and they had both come from Florence to Rome to work for the most prestigious patron in Europe – the Pope, Julius II. He had ambitious plans to redecorate both the Sistine Chapel and his private apartments and he chose Michelangelo to fresco the chapel ceiling and Raphael – who was just 26 at the time – to do the apartments.
As you follow the visitor route through the Vatican Museums you can see the results of these historic commissions. Raphael’s frescos come before the chapel. And it is the most famous, the School of Athens, which gives a clue to the tensions between the two artists. The scene depicts the great writers, thinkers and scientists of the ancient world gathered in a grand architectural backdrop.
Most prominent of all, sitting on the steps right in the foreground – is a morose-looking figure in knee-high leather boots, leaning his head on his hand and staring at the floor. This is the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, who was famous for being a loner and a morose misanthrope. But just as – in the middle of the fresco – Raphael has given Plato the face of Leonardo da Vinci, he has depicted Heraclitus as Michelangelo – those buskins are Michelangelo’s famous dog-skin boots. Meanwhile, to the right, Raphael included a self-portrait, peeping slyly out from behind a pillar with the faintest of knowing smiles on this face.
In truth, friendship was probably never likely to blossom between the two artists. By contrast with Raphael’s charm, Michelangelo was well-known
for his fiery temperament and fragile ego. As a young student his nose had been broken during a fight with a rival sculptor, and there was also a good deal of bad blood between him and the man who should have been his inspiration: Leonardo da Vinci. When they were both commissioned to paint battle scenes in Florence’s city hall, Michelangelo was openly rude to his much more senior rival and an aggrieved Leonardo wrote remarks in his notebooks about the “wooden” qualities of Michelangelo’s painting.
In Rome, Michelangelo’s competitive paranoia grew worse. He felt threatened by the easy talent of Raphael and kept the Sistine Chapel door locked day and night so that his neighbouring
upstart couldn’t steal his ideas. But it was to no avail – Raphael’s smooth talking prevailed. When Michelangelo was away for a few days, the younger artist persuaded the key holder to let him spy on his rival’s progress. Raphael was dazzled by the flowing dynamism and interaction of the figures on the half-finished ceiling and immediately began assimilating his rival’s ideas. You can see the results in the poses of the figures Raphael painted immediately afterwards in two Roman churches – Santa Maria della Pace, just off the Piazza Navona, and in the church of Sant’Agostino.
Michelangelo struggled to shake off the competition. Once the Sistine ceiling was finished, it was Raphael who
got the commission to design the spectacular tapestries which were to be installed along the lower parts of the chapel walls. They are now a few hundred yards away in the Vatican’s Pinacoteca museum. And it was the younger artist who was then asked to take charge of designing a new St Peter’s church.
Ultimately though, charm and good looks seem to have proven Raphael’s
downfall – at least so ran the gossip in the 16th century. In 1514, he was reluctantly persuaded to get engaged to Maria Bibbiena, the daughter of a cardinal. It would have been a big step up socially, but Raphael could never quite bring himself to commit.
As Vasari recounts, he was a “very amorous man and affectionate towards the ladies” and he had a tendency “to divert himself beyond measure with the pleasures of love”. This indulgence was blamed for a violent fever he suffered in 1520. His doctors tried to ease the condition by letting blood, but it only made things worse. Hastily Raphael drew up his will, made his confession and died at the age of just 37.
The irascible Michelangelo was to outlive him by 44 years and ultimately had the last – no doubt bitter – laugh. In 1547, when he was already in his 70s, he was charged with finishing the rebuilding of St Peter’s. He tore up Raphael’s plans, and re-designed the dome. It wasn’t finished when he died in 1564, but what we see today is, essentially, his vision.
But despite the petty feuding, the legacy of this great artistic rivalry is an astonishing one. And there are reminders of it in the greatest sights, museums and churches all over Rome. Here is where to enjoy them.
In truth, friendship was probably never likely to blossom between the two artists