“Sprezzatura” in Raphael and Castiglione

Abstract

The High Renaissance in Italy is usually understood to span no more than twenty years—i.e., the first two decades of the sixteenth century. In this brief period, Rome and the Papacy served as the focal points for an incredible burst of creative energy in virtually all of the arts. But the furious pace of those years under the Popes Julius II and Leo X was to prove impossible to sustain. In fact, the sack of Rome in 1527 was, in one sense, anti-climactic. Despite the inevitable ravages of any invasion, one cannot point to this or any other historical event which might serve to explain the rather sudden collapse of one of western Europe's most brilliant epochs. On the contrary, the High Renaissance had clearly exhausted itself well before Rome's walls had been violated. Of the major artists in this period, Leonardo had departed for France by 1517, Raphael was dead in 1520, and Michelangelo's eccentric genius was already moving in a strange and introspective direction which points more toward the fascinations of the later sixteenth century than to the self-conscious Humanism of the High Renaissance. Although the giants of this period left at their deaths certain assistants, students, etc., the world which they had fashioned for themselves disappeared with them. There was something peculiarly personal about the ideal which attracted them all and which defied transmission—at least with any retention of the original vitality. Very likely this failure cannot be explained by the not uncommon inability of student to perpetuate the success of his mentor. The lengthy career of Michelangelo provided ample opportunity for the philosophic alteration alluded to above to reveal itself dramatically. But it is also true that Raphael's rather brief career indicates a redirection of attitudes which is not altogether incompatible with that of Michelangelo. The brilliant lucidity of the School of Athens and the Disputa vies in the Stanza del'Incendio and the Transfiguration with more expressive distortions and the visionary. In short, the fragile flower that the High Renaissance represents would seem to have carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Therefore, like Achilles, the ideal of this uniquely dramatic period was doomed by its very nature to live a brilliant but brief career. One way to recognize the necessity involved in this self-destruction is to examine the complementary attitudes encountered in the achievements and thoughts of two men who rather directly embodied the special qualities of the High Renaissance—Raphael and Baldesar Castiglione.