Raffaello da Montelupo
Raffaello da Montelupo (c. 1504/1505 – c. 1566/1567), born Raffaele Sinibaldi, was a sculptor and architect of the
Works
Raffaello was born in Montelupo Fiorentino, near Florence.
As a young artist in his twenties, he assisted Lorenzetto in Rome with the execution of statues of Elijah and Jonah for the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo (on designs by Raphael). He is also attributed a marble relief of the mystical marriage of St. Catherine (c. 1530), in a chapel at Santa Maria della Consolazione.
Raffaello then went to
Shortly thereafter, according to Vasari, Raffaello began work in
He returned to Rome, continuing to work as a sculptor under the direction of Michelangelo. There he contributed to work on the tomb of Pope Julius II at San Pietro in Vincoli,[3] and contributed (along with Baccio Bandinelli) to the tomb of Pope Leo X at Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
For the chapel constructed by
Under
Raffaello da Montelupo also worked as an architect and, among other projects, made both sculptural and architectural contributions to the Duomo in the Umbrian town of Orvieto, where he retired and later died in 1566/1567. Vasari summed up Raffaello da Montelupo as follows:
I believe that Raffaello, if he had undertaken great works, as he might have done, would have executed more things in art, and better, than he did. But he was too kindly and considerate, avoiding all conflict, and contenting himself with that wherewith fortune had provided him; and thus he neglected many opportunities of making works of distinction. Raffaello was a very masterly draughtsman, and he had a much better knowledge of all matters of art that had been shown by his father Baccio.[1]
Autobiography
In the 1560s, Raffaello wrote something of a partial autobiography, recounting episodes from his youth, the sack of Rome in 1527 by the army of
I will not omit to say that by nature I am left-handed, and, finding that hand more facile than the right one, I used to write with it, since my teacher did not mind, being satisfied that my handwriting was good. I have therefore always used the left hand, be it for writing, be it for drawing some designs from the Morgante, which was used for reading at school. From the moment that I held the sheet lengthwise, in order to write with the left hand, many were astonished, thinking that I wrote "all'ebraica" ["Hebrew-style", i.e. right-to-left] and that [my writing] could not be read later. . . . As I have already said, I draw better with the left hand, and once when I found myself drawing the "Arco di Trasi al Colosseo" [the Arch of Constantine], Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo passed by and stopped to watch me. It should be prefaced that both of them, though naturally left-handed, did everything with their right hand, except actions requiring force. So they stayed a long time to watch me with great wonder, because, as far as is known, the two of them never made anything with their left [hand].[6]
References
- ^ a b Link to on-line biography of Baccio and Raffaello da Montelupo from Vasari's Vite.
- ^ Life and Works of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Charles Heath Wilson (1881), p. 263; see also Link to on-line biography of Baccio and Raffaello da Montelupo from Vasari's Vite.
- ^ Link to on-line biography of Baccio and Raffaello da Montelupo from Vasari's Vite
- ^ Rome (Eyewitness Travel Guides) DK Publishing, London (2003) p. 242
- ^ Raffaello da Montelupo's autobiography published in Vasari–Milanesi (1906), vol. 6, pp. 551–62; Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Bernard Berenson, (1961) vol. 1, pp. 384–92.
- ^ Vita da Raffaello da Montelupo, Riccardo Gatteschi (1998), pp. 120–21.
External links
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