Raphael's Poetics: Art and Poetry in High Renaissance Rome.

Raphael's Poetics: Art and Poetry in High Renaissance Rome

David Rijser

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.

475 pages, 18 color plates, 87 b/w ills.

Raphael's Poetics: Art and Poetry in High Renaissance Rome is an impressive undertaking that delights, challenges and educates. David Rijser, a professor of classics at the University of Amsterdam, sets out to expand the very meaning of ekphrasis by attempting to clarify the culture of reception and identification with works of art by the cultured audience of High Renaissance Rome. Rijser's masterful command of classical literature specifically and classical culture in general informs every page of the text. Numerous passages from ancient texts are quoted, some at considerable length, and the great majority of them are followed by translations, often by the author.

Along the way the reader meets or revisits a cast of fascinating characters ranging from the wildly wealthy and astute financier, Agostino Chigi, to the rotund and learned papal librarian, Tommaso "Fedra" Inghirami, to the humanist, papal notary and gardener, Johannes Goritz of Luxembourg, not to mention the painter and poet par excellence, Raphael, himself. All of these figures are players on the grand stage of a Golden Age they not only molded but also recognized.

Rijser is quick to acknowledge and express appreciation to great scholars from whom he has learned and borrowed, including Christoph Frommel, John Shearman, Ingrid Rowland and Bram Kempers. And yet there are times he gently spars and disagrees with them as he confidently builds a case that modern viewers have marginalized the ubiquitous admiration of ancient poetry in their interpretations of the art of the High Renaissance.

The readers of this book are sure to know the great Roman spaces and monuments analyzed by Rijser. They range from the Pantheon and Raphael's tomb to the Cortile Belvedere, inhabited by the iconic Apollo Belvedere and Laocoon, the majestic Stanza della Segnatura, Raphael's fresco of Isaiah in Sant'Agostino (which in modern times has overshadowed the sculpture by Andrea Sansovino of Mary, St. Anne and Christ below it), and finally the dazzling jewel of the Villa Farnesina.

The book is organized into four chapters with an introduction, which sets the stage immediately with Aeneas enveloped by a cloud visiting Carthage and witnessing decorative representations of the Trojan War in a Temple of Juno. Aeneas is overcome with emotion as he relives his own history through images. Through the poem, the reader could be transported to Carthage as Aeneas was transported back to Troy. Drawing from the Aeneid at the very beginning of his book establishes the primacy and centrality of Virgil, whom Rijser cites in his arguments and theses as "the poet of the Renaissance, Christianus ante Christum" (xvii),. Chief among the author's goals is his intention to describe and decipher the code that ancient literature provided and even expected in its reception in the Renaissance. Rijser identifies the elements of this code as interaction, typology and visibility, the latter being underscored by an immediacy or vividness (xx).

Rijser uses his introduction to remind the reader that the Renaissance conceived of art as a parallel to poetry. He also stresses that typology is linked to prophecy especially through the divine furor of poetry. He aims to achieve "a more thorough understanding of the literary tradition, both ancient and Renaissance, to help interpret the function and context of art" (xxi). Restoring the centrality of ancient texts and Neo-Latin poetry is critical for a more thorough and accurate understanding of Renaissance art, where the inclusion of these texts have been relegated to the realm of Quellenforschung or merely influences. The author also answers the question, "Why Raphael?' He admits to a certain partiality to the artist but also feels that his works are of such stature and so canonical that they present highly instructive examples of the shortcomings of contemporary scholarship in assessing the greater role of ancient literature in the context of the High Renaissance.

In the first chapter, the reader is presented with an interesting review of the importance of epigrams. In antiquity these inscriptions could be of a political or a propagandistic nature. They encompassed the mundane and sublime, witty and banal. Their decline mirrors that of the Roman Empire and their reemergence paralleled the rebirth of the Renaissance itself. Rijser examines the torrents of grief and number of epigrams that stemmed from the untimely death of Raphael at the age of thirty-seven on Good Friday April 6,1520. These epigrams extolled Raphael's talents, charms and above all, grace, casting the artist in the very center of the restoration of Rome.

That Raphael's death on Good Friday linked him with the passion of Christ is not surprising, but Rijser also considers Raphael as a major bridge between antiquity and Christianity. Raphael and his good friend and author of II Cortegiano, Baldassare Castiglione, had undertaken a project to make an illustrated reconstruction of ancient Rome. This was not viewed merely as recapturing what had been lost but instead as restoring Rome to its former and rightful glory as the preordained center of the world. With Raphael's demise, Rome suffered a death too. This discussion also includes a fascinating discursus on Raphael's tomb, planned by the artist himself, and its subsequent history.

Chapter two examines the papacy of Julius II and his vision for a truly new Christian Empire that paralleled Augustus's vision for his newly established Roman empire. Julius was preoccupied by concerns about his own legitimacy, in light of the lingering repercussions of the revelation that the so-called Donation of Constantine (by which Constantine ostensibly ceded temporal power to Pope Sylvester in the fourth century) was a medieval forgery. Julius realized his rule could benefit from an intricate typology that predicted, not only in Old Testament texts but in ancient ones as well (especially Virgil's Aeneid), the ultimate triumph of the Roman Catholic Church and his papacy. Julius's Golden Age would be brilliantly promulgated in the arts. As Rijser notes, art in the service of the papacy was seen to be philosophy and theology made visible.

The Stanza della Segnatura serves as the focus of discussion here. In his analysis of the frescoes, the author states again that Virgil is the key Latin author of this period, while emphasizing that the style of Raphael consciously evoked classical literature, in particular Ciceronian rhetoric, Horatian theory and Virgilian epic (120). Rijser gives Raphael's Parnassus pride of place in the room. He asks the reader to imagine Pope Julius II sitting with his back to the depictions of Canon and Civic Law and looking out the window beneath the Parnassus to his villa, influenced as it was by the ancient ruins of Praeneste with its temple of Lortuna Primigenia, an oracular site. The distinct connection between poetry and prophecy is made here and these are tied in turn to the very name, Vatican, the etymology of which stems from the word prophecy.

Housed in this grand revival of an ancient villa were the sculptures in the Belvedere Cortile, then as now including the Laocoon and the Apollo Belvedere, among others, which the author reads as forming a complex program that establishes a typological association between Aeneas and Julius II. "The empire was to have at its centre Rome and ... under Julius it was to gain perfection" (173). In the Stanza della Segnatura, what Aeneas, "the supreme poet of Imperial Rome had prophesied, Raphael showed to have finally come true" (175). Rijser credits Tommaso Inghirami, the pope's librarian, as the genius behind the conception of the program of the Stanza della Segnatura. Inghirami, with Giano Parrhasio, wrote a commentary on Horace's Ars Poetica positing the supremacy of poetry as an art form. Raphael includes his self-portrait not only in the School of Athens but also, as Rijser and others suggest, next to Virgil on the Parnassus. Raphael is not stating that he wrote epics or sonnets but he is claiming that he paints the equivalents of such works. Horace's ut pictura poesis ("as is painting, so is poetry") is clearly celebrated here.

Johannes Goritz from Luxembourg figures prominently in chapter three, cleverly titled "Let No One without Poem Enter." Goritz was a distinguished member of the Curia and moved up through the ranks of offices under the papacies of Alexander VI and Leo X. Lrom 1512 to 1527, when he fled after the Sack of Rome, Goritz hosted celebrations of his patron saint Anne in Sant'Agostino at the so-called Goritz column. This richly decorated pier, decorated along its vertical axis with the Raphael fresco of Isaiah at the top above the Sansovino sculpture of Saint Anne, the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, also included an altar and a space in the pavement for Goritz's tomb.

Rijser sees in the Goritz Chapel another stunning example of references to a Golden Age. He connects Isaiah's prophecy to Virgil's in the 4th Eclogue, through the writings of the humanist poets of the Coryciana, which are devoted to the painting and sculpture of the Goritz pier. The Old Testament prophet (unusual as part of a grave monument) holds a scroll that reads, in part, "Open the Gates that a just nation, guardians of the faith may enter," a message corresponding clearly with the triumphal arch that encloses the sculptural group beneath it. The Golden Age prophesied by Isaiah is realized by the conception and passion of Christ, symbolized by the goldfinch held by the child. Prophetic allusions likewise abound in the poems of the Coryciana, whose authors saw themselves as the new Virgils, "novi Vergilii" (218). In the associations of Isaiah's prophecy, the Raphael fresco and the humanist writings of the Coryciana, Rijser finds a celebratory awareness of the promise of the awaited Golden Age in the Rome of Julius II. "Whether in Sant'Agostino or in the shade of the vines at the foot of the Capitol, when gods appeared on earth both Isaiah's and Virgil's prophesies had come true" (221).

Key to Rijser's argument are the poems of the Coryciana, which were themselves integral to the annual celebrations of Saint Anne at Sant' Agostino. These poems, written by members of Goritz's immediate circle of humanist friends and colleagues, were printed in 1524, and as a collection, they are known as the Coryciana or poems dedicated to Corycius, a Latinized version of Goritz. Corycius was also the name of a gardener in Virgil's 4th Georgic. Goritz was known for the wonderful parties he held after the religious celebrations for Saint Anne. After the mass in Sant' Agostino, the group would retreat to Goritz's garden near the Markets of Trajan and the Capitoline Hill for a feast. Thus the name Corycius carried an expanded resonance.

Before progressing to the fourth and final chapter, Rijser inserts an Interlude in which he reminds us that "Intricate webs of allusion, where myths yield significance on multiple level: these are the subject of this book" (243). He goes on to consider such topics as text and context, unity and ambiguity, style and content, and Virgil's Eclogues. Rijser's erudition is very much on display as his discourse ranges from the characteristics of Latin poetry to the similarities between the pastoral landscape and the Christian paradise.

The grand finale of Raphael's Poetics is the exploration of the Villa Farnesina commissioned by Agostino Chigi, the papal banker from Siena, a shrewd businessman and an energetic and humorous bon vivant. Rijser sees the villa, quite rightly, as "the icon of the carefree years preceding the disaster of the Sack of Rome" (271). The author argues convincingly that ancient poetry was a compelling force in the conception, execution and decoration of the Farnesina and that the Farnesina is "foremost the visual reconstruction of literary sources" (324, note 213). Where John Shearman had posited that the Farnesina was a recreation of Apuleius' Golden Ass, comparing it to the magnificent palace that Cupid created for Psyche, Rijser contends that a careful reading of poetic descriptions of villas in two of Statius' Silvae yield a much more compelling influence. Contemporary poets Blosio Palladio and Egidio Gallo praised the Farnesina both sketch the beautiful abode on the banks of the Tiber as a type of paradise.

The author also brings fresh insights and new readings to the famous frescoes within the villa. Rijser focuses on the frescoes in the Sala del Fregio by Baldassare Peruzzi, which include the Labors of Hercules, Loves of Jupiter and other mythological scenes that may reflect Chigi's identity as a successful businessman. The reader is reminded that the Sala di Galatea was originally open to the gardens and, rather than the cacophony of modern Rome, visitors would have heard the song of birds and the gurgling of fountains. Rijser explores the ceiling vault by Baldassare Peruzzi with its reference to the patron's horoscope, the lunettes by Sebastiano del Piombo (for which convincing arguments are presented to link their subjects with elements of Chigi's biography), the Polyphemus by Sebastiano, and the undisputed masterpiece and namesake of the room, Raphael's Galatea. The latter two are somewhat unusual in that wall paintings were not common in Roman villa decoration. We are also reminded that there were very few precedents for paintings of Galatea. For his creation, Raphael followed the example of Zeuxis, borrowing from a variety of sources and influences.

The writings of the Greek bucolic poet Theocritus are considered as a possible source for the conception of the frescoes, with Chigi himself cast in the role of the hapless Polyphemus. Galatea is seen as the Cyclops's vision or dream. As Rijser states, "The fresco is Polyphemus' song" (398). Reviewing the differing perspectives of the works in the Sala di Galatea, Rijser notes that Raphael added a frame to the fresco, conjuring for the viewer the image of an easel painting. Rijser sees influences from Statius and especially Philostratus, both of whom describe the art collections of ancient villas and the gallery all'antica. It is especially the Imagines by Philostratus that bears a convincing similarity with the frescoes of Polyphemus and Galatea. Rijser notes that other sources such as Poliziano could have been utilized, but the passages from Philostratus are the most convincing.

The Rijser concludes with a short discussion of the Sala di Psiche and the marriage of Agostino Chigi and Francesca Ordeaschi in 1519, consecrated by Leo X. Chosen to reflect the trials of the married couple, the frescoes, designed by Raphael and executed by assistants, reflect the harmonious and celebratory merger of the past and present. The book ends on a poignant note. Within a year of the festivities, both Raphael and Chigi were dead. The bright shining light of the Golden Age would dim and be cruelly snuffed out by the Sack of 1527.

In the preface to Raphael's Poetics the author explains that this publication is a revision of his 2005 dissertation. He hopes that his book was written to appeal to a "public broader than the usual academic suspects" (xi). The audience for this book, however, seems to be destined for precisely the circle of academic suspects he notes. Certainly it would be attractive to Renaissance and classical scholars and graduate students in certain areas of related disciplines. It is definitely a book for specialists. Rijser's Raphael's Poetics is nevertheless an important contribution to Renaissance and classical studies.

Debra Murphy

University of North Florida

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Author:	Murphy, Debra
Publication:	Southeastern College Art Conference Review
Article Type:	Book review
Date:	Jan 1, 2013
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