Original subtitles

(SOUNDS OF THE NATURE)

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) In a German fairy tale, a hermit climbs an oak tree in a dark, wild forest...

..to escape from a pack of wolves on the hunt for prey.

(HOWLING WOLVES)

(Narrator) Then, from nowhere, a beautiful, a brave young woman appears...

..and chases the creatures away.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) To thank her, the hermit prophesies that she,...

..and the tree in which he had taken refuge, will enjoy eternal fame.

(Narrator) Years later, a painter portrayed her as a Madonna...

..on a wooden oval taken from that very same oak,...

..and so the prophecy came true.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) The painting became one of the most beautiful in the history of art.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) The hand that painted it was that of a prodigious and versatile young artist,...

..driven by a single purpose: the quest for absolute beauty.

(Narrator) His name was Raphael.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) Raphael's universe is strewn with sublime masterpieces,...

..radiating images of unique women, shining stars in a galaxy of perfection.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) The mother, the patroness, the lover, the goddess:...

..these are the protagonists of the artist's life,...

..that helped him create the myth of ideal beauty.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Nestled in the hills of central Italy,...

..an almost magical city reaches for the skies.

(Narrator) Here, the young prodigy was born in 1483.

(Narrator) And it is here that our legend begins: in the city of Urbino.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) During the Italian Renaissance,...

..it was one of the peninsula's most important courts,...

..attracting artists and intellectuals from all over Europe,...

..many of whom made it their home.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael took his first steps up and down the steep streets of this city...

..between his father's workshop and his home,...

..in an atmosphere imbued with family love.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) This is how he discovered his gift: the art of giving birth to beauty.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Pisani, in Italian) Raphael was born into a family...

..where Giovanni Santi, his father, was a humanist,...

..a highly cultured person,...

..who certainly passed his knowledge and his ideas on to his son.

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) He had married Magia Ciarla, probably short for Maddalena,...

..who was from a wealthy Urbino family,...

..so they were a well-off, very well-connected couple.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) Vasari writes about how the father lovingly looked after his son,...

..and personally Iím convinced, for many reasons,...

..that this boy really was a prodigy, a kind of Mozart of painting.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Pisani, in Italian) Raphael's childhood was marked by a tragedy:...

..the death of his mother, when he was just 8-years-old.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) Tradition has it that Giovanni Santi portrayed his wife...

..dressed as the Madonna for this painting,...

..which is preserved in the house where Raphael grew up.

(Narrator) With a habitual, maternal gesture, the woman soothes her child to sleep,...

..as though she were singing a lullaby.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) The love of a family seems to come to life in just a few centimetres of plaster...

..and we can imagine that, thanks to this fresco,...

..Raphael was able to preserve his mother's memory.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) It's no surprise that the painter would return...

..to the theme of the Madonna and child for the rest of his life.

(in Italian) The theme of the Madonna is one that runs right through Raphael's career.

(in Italian) He painted many of them, from the early years right up until the end,...

..placed in natural settings and surrounded by various characters.

(Farinella, in Italian) A study of just a few of these artworks...

..would be enough to grasp the continuous evolution of Raphael's painting.

(in Italian) The first, the very first,...

..there are three beautiful examples in Berlin,...

..still owe a great deal to Umbrian painting of the time.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) Their calm, oval faces are peaceful,...

..gently flushed by the serenity of a moment of affection that is moving in its simplicity.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) It is in these devotional Madonnas...

..that the young Raphael demonstrates his prodigious talent for the first time.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Pisani, in Italian) Above all, we have to realise that the feelings he conveys,...

..this composure and perfect poise,...

..somehow represent a longing for the relationship with his mother,...

..which was sharply interrupted when he was only 8-years-old.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael's first Madonnas embody all the influences he received...

..from the artists who made Urbino the most fascinating artistic cauldron in Europe:...

..his father, Giovanni Santi, Pedro Berruguete,..

..Justus of Ghent, Piero della Francesca and Perugino.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) At the start of the 1500s,...

..the spirit of this very city was embodied by a woman:...

..the Duchess who rebuilt the court of Urbino by becoming a patron of the arts,...

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

..Elisabetta Gonzaga.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Fossi, in Italian) It fell to Elisabetta Gonzaga...

..to hold up the Duchy of Montefeltro, literally, physically and politically...

..at what was a very critical moment in the history of Urbino.

(Fossi, in Italian) At that time, the city was being threatened by Cesare Borgia,...

..who was originally allied to the Pope.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Fossi, in Italian) Her husband not only suffered very bad health,...

..but he was also forced to keep moving, as he was constantly on the run.

(Fossi, in Italian) So Elisabetta was left holding the reins.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) She was a great cultural organiser, as we would say today,...

..one of the most famous personalities of her time,...

..capable of drawing intellectuals and artists to her.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Her gaze is severe yet composed, as though ruling her court with an iron will.

(Narrator) Behind her lies the landscape of the territory she governs.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) This is Elisabetta Gonzaga,...

..as seen through the eyes and the paintbrush of the young Raphael,...

..coming to grips with the portrait of a powerful figure for the first time.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) She is represented face on,...

..in an image that seems a little inexpressive from a psychological point of view.

(Farinella, in Italian) Her dress clearly expresses her power,...

..with its black and gold motifs that create a marvellous geometric effect.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Fossi, in Italian) She's wearing a kind of necklace around her forehead,...

..bearing a scorpion.

(Fossi, in Italian) One very likely hypothesis...

..is that it's linked to her fraught relationship with Cesare Borgia.

(in Italian) We could say it's a sort of amulet against ill-fortune,...

..against the threat of invasion, which did in fact take place.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) At the court of Urbino,...

..yet another lady fell for Raphael's unique style and genius.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) The painter portrayed her in silence, allowing the painting to speak for itself.

(Henry) The picture is known as "La Muta"...

..because of the apparent silence sense of self control within the picture.

And yet, there's something about her self-possessed mood...

..that led to this name being attributed to it.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Henry) It's an enigmatic picture.

It seems to respond to Netherlandish models.

It has this peculiar feature of a finger pressed...

..as though on the picture frame that creates a distance between us and the image.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

She is a dominating presence,...

..a person who plainly felt comfortable in Raphael's company...

..and who Raphael, I think we can feel, felt warmly towards.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) The subject of the portrait is certainly a widow,...

..that much is clear from the colour of the rings she is wearing,...

..characteristic widow's rings.

(in Italian) So who could it have been at the court of Urbino?

The most probable hypothesis is that this is Giovanna Feltria.

(in Italian) This determined dumbness, these tight lips would fit the sad story...

..of a woman whose life had been marked by adversity.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) The elegant geometries of the court of Urbino...

..are reflected in the women that governed it.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) Women who recognized Raphael's rare genius before many others.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) It was indeed Giovanna Feltria who wrote a letter in 1504...

..to the Gonfalonier of Florence, Pier Soderini,...

..changing the young prodigy's life forever.

(Fossi, in Italian) In this letter, if it is indeed authentic,...

..and not a fake document from the 1700s, as some have suggested,...

..Giovanna Feltria recommends Raphael to Soderini,...

..saying that he is a marvellous artist.

(in Italian) She informs him that the person carrying the letter...

..is Raphael of Urbino, a young and extremely talented painter.

(in Italian) Why is that significant?

(in Italian) Because this is a clear case of a woman recommending a painter...

..to the male Gonfalonier of the Republic, which goes to show that, at that time,...

..a recommendation by a woman of high social rank...

..carried enormous weight.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) "I love him extremely, and would wish for him to perfect his talents."

(Narrator) "I recommend him to your Lordship most highly."

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Art is an enchantment that heals the soul.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) And so "La Muta" broke her silence...

..to grant Raphael the chance of a new life.

(Narrator) The young prodigy was ready to astound other cities,...

..adapting his pictorial language.

(Narrator) And to render the enchantment sublime.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael was 20 when he arrived in Florence...

..and he was utterly captivated by the city's charm and artistic vitality.

(Narrator) The Italian Renaissance was about to spring into action.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) His arrival in Florence started a kind of earthquake...

..in Raphael's mind and in his painting.

(Farinella, in Italian) In the years between 1504 and 1508...

..Florence was a bit like Paris around 1907,...

..because there were the places where the history of art in the west...

..changed dramatically in just a few years.

(in Italian) Raphael realised what was happening and decided to go and live there...

..to experience this transformation for himself.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael was still a young painter whose career had yet to take off.

(Narrator) In Florence, giants like Michelangelo and Leonardo were in fierce competition,...

..producing works of genius.

(Narrator) Raphael studied these great men's moves to achieve his goal:...

..ideal beauty.

Raphael's experience in Florence was not altogether happy.

He did not break in and get any altarpiece commissions...

..until the very last year that he was there.

Mostly he was working for a few private patrons,...

..who supported him with small commissions...

..whilst he was doing his study of Michelangelo and Leonardo.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) After painstaking studies and feverish passion,...

..he took up his favourite theme: the Madonna and child.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) And now the painter was ready to depict this subject in a revolutionary new way.

(Farinella, in Italian) Suddenly, he found himself...

..coming to terms with a whole new concept of the Holy Family group.

(Farinella, in Italian) On the one hand he had the great cartoon...

..Leonardo had drawn for the Santissima Annunziata Basilica,...

..with its incredibly complex composition of figures immersed in the chiaroscuro shading.

(Farinella, in Italian) And on the other there was the apparently contrasting approach...

..of Michelangelo's Tondi, the Pitti Tondo, the Taddei Tondo...

..and of course the Doni Tondo.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) These works were conceived in a far more sculptural way,...

..but with the same idea of giving the Madonna and Child group...

..a kind of internal architecture, a monumentality.

(Farinella, in Italian) And in fact Raphael painted some Madonnas...

..putting these two influences to good use,...

..while giving his own special twist to these new inventions.

(Farinella, in Italian) Because these Raphael Madonnas could only be by Raphael,...

..they are very different from those by Michelangelo or Leonardo.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) The painter created tenderly poetic images that are astounding in their naturalness.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) Mary is a mother like any other,...

..who momentarily puts down her book to check on her son as he plays with his cousin.

(Narrator) The book contains knowledge of Jesus's tragic and inescapable destiny,...

..a fate sometimes represented by the symbol of the goldfinch.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) But the two children pay no heed to the portents of the future.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) They are carefree, living only in the present.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael had to evolve his own style to create such lyrical compositions,...

..demonstrating a profound awareness of human nature.

(Narrator) It is an artistic revelation,...

..one which he learned from an eccentric and visionary genius,...

..30 years his senior: Leonardo Da Vinci.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(in Italian) In 1503, Leonardo was painting the Mona Lisa.

(in Italian) So when Raphael arrived in Florence in 1504,...

..he would certainly have gone to visit the great painter...

..and he would have seen the Mona Lisa in progress.

(Farinella, in Italian) And the face would probably have already been finished.

(Farinella, in Italian) What struck him,

..wasn't so much the Mona Lisa's mysterious expression.

(Farinella, in Italian) On the one hand it was the way the figure was immersed in nature,...

..but most of all it was Leonardo's ability to represent...

..not just the features of her face,...

..which was something all good painters knew how to do,...

..it was his representation of the "stirrings of the soul",...

..which today we would call psychology.

(Narrator) Raphael was very impressed by this new way of painting women,...

..and above all else he wanted to acquire the same skill as Leonardo...

..in portraying the female subject.

(Narrator) The three-quarter pose, the folded hands,...

..the eyes gazing straight at the painter,...

..these are the elements he took from his study of the Mona Lisa...

..and which can be admired in one of his most famous portraits.

(Narrator) Today, this portrait is known as "Young woman with unicorn".

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

It's a Florentine portrait and it shows in her lap a unicorn.

Now, this seems to have been a symbol of chastity,...

..it is also sometimes a family symbol,...

..and the oddity of the portrait now...

..is something that we find quite hard to get our heads around,...

..but there are a number of related works which show unicorns very prominently.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) We don't know who she is,...

..she's probably a young girl from a good, wealthy Florentine family.

(Farinella, in Italian) But the back story to this painting is very interesting.

(Farinella, in Italian) It is displayed in the Borghese Gallery...

..and was rediscovered in quite an extraordinary way in the 1920s by Roberto Longhi.

(in Italian) While he was examining some pictures conserved in the Borghese archives,...

..he came across this strange painting...

..that had been retouched in the 1500s and perhaps also in the 1600s.

(in Italian) It was the portrait of a woman...

..that had clearly been transformed into the image of a saint.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) In the photos from the 1920s...

..you could see clearly that this woman with blonde hair was holding a spoked wheel...

..and so she'd been turned into St. Catherine of Alexandria.

(in Italian) Longhi, who had an amazingly sharp eye,...

..like almost no other art historian of his time,...

..realised that under all that repainting, there had to be something quite extraordinary.

(in Italian) So the painting was handed over to a restorer,...

..and all these later additions were removed.

(Farinella, in Italian) A masterpiece by Raphael was revealed,...

..and it was discovered that the girl had originally been holding this little animal.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael strove to find a new feminine ideal,...

..and he sought it in the famous faces of the Florentine noblewomen,...

..who were often collectors of great masterpieces.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) Among them was the young daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Florence:...

..Maddalena Strozzi.

(in Italian) At first sight, Raphael's painting of Maddalena Strozzi is very striking,...

..especially if we consider that the model was very young.

(Farinella, in Italian) When Raphael painted her, I think in 1506,...

..Maddalena Strozzi would have been about 17 years old,...

..and yet if we look closely at the picture and try to guess her age,...

..we'd say she was much older.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Farinella, in Italian) At the time, young brides loved to have themselves portrayed...

..as older and more mature than they really were.

(in Italian) They got married very young in the 14- and 1500s.

(Farinella, in Italian) In some cases they married young, at 12, 13, or 14 years of age,...

..and so to allow them to take on the role of the mother of the family, of the wife,...

..these images often showed them as being much older.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Calm, collected and strong.

(Narrator) The women Raphael painted are unique, as is the way painter portrayed them.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) And it is thanks to another woman...

..that Raphael was able to continue his prodigious quest.

(POURING RAIN AND THUNDERS)

(Narrator) A bloody battle rages in the city of Perugia.

(PEOPLE'S SHOUTS)

(Narrator) The aftermath of a fratricidal war besmirches the Baglioni family's honour.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) Atalanta disowns her son Grifonetto...

..for having murdered his own cousin.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) She banishes him outside the palace walls,...

..where he is struck down by the swords of family rivals looking for revenge.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) When the mother runs towards her son's body, it is already too late...

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

..Grifonetto is dead.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael commemorated this episode with a movingly dramatic painting:...

..the Borghese Entombment.

(Narrator) It is tempting to think that Raphael is alluding to Grifonetto...

..in the lifeless body of Christ,...

..and that the Madonna, fainting away on the right,...

..represents the young man's mother, Atalanta.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) Contemporary sources describe the body of this martyred boy,...

..his mother's agony and her feelings of regret for having first disowned him...

..and then to have witnessed his violent death.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Henry) The Borghese Entombment, in the Galleria Borghese in Rome,...

..was painted for Atalanta Baglioni in 1507,...

..for the church of San Francesco al Prato in Perugia.

As such the mother commissioning this subject...

..was creating a link between her family,...

..her tragedy and this Christological episode.

This was recognised from the period...

..and was greatly enhanced by later scholars.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) In this scene, showing the transportation of Christ's body,...

..Raphael seems to be alluding to ancient sarcophagi,...

..the famous Meleager sarcophagi,...

..which depicted the death of Meleager in the same way,...

..with a body being carried by a kind of procession...

..and its arm hanging down in the foreground.

(Farinella, in Italian) It's been called "il braccio della morte", "the arm of death",...

..using quite an evocative wordplay.

(Farinella, in Italian) This image was to have a truly great future.

(Farinella, in Italian) The painting was a source of inspiration for many great artists,...

..starting with Caravaggio's famous Deposition of Christ...

..that now hangs in the Vatican Museums.

(Farinella, in Italian) And then, over the centuries,...

..one of the most famous paintings by David, the Death of Marat,...

..now in Brussels, shows the same motif of the arm falling lifelessly to the floor.

(in Italian) And it became a kind of eternal symbol...

..of the artist's ability to represent the moment of passage between life and death.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

His original drawings look just like a Perugino model...

..with Christ lying on the ground,...

..but at a certain point Christ is picked up and is carried in the picture...

..and that becomes a much more dynamic scene.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) Today we can still admire many of Raphael's drawings...

..and understand his painstaking designs.

(Narrator) For the artist, the search for ideal beauty in any painting...

..always began from the very first studies.

(Fossi, in Italian) To my mind, the grace, the harmony and the purity of Raphael's drawing...

..are absolutely beyond compare.

(in Italian) He really was perhaps the greatest draughtsman of his age.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Fossi, in Italian) Drawing was considered the most important skills of all,...

..even more than painting.

(in Italian) Drawing: in Italian "disegno", as in "dio" and "segno": the sign of God.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) Raphael was a painter who used drawing...

..as a kind of workshop for his ideas, so he could change, correct, refine and perfect them.

(in Italian) And where his drawings have been preserved,...

..if we put them in order and study them,...

..we have an incredible opportunity to step inside the artist's mental laboratory.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(in Italian) To consider drawing as an investigative tool,...

..I believe that we can effectively start to reason from the Alba Madonna.

(Di Majo, in Italian) It's a very unusual drawing because on the front it conserves...

..Raphael's elaborations of his Florentine experience,...

..so his studies of Leonardo and of Michelangelo's Taddei tondo.

(Di Majo, in Italian) But on the reverse side it gives us...

..a clue to his discovery of the Sistine Chapel ceiling,...

..for, on this side, the figure study for the Alba Madonna...

..derives from the Adam of the Sistine Chapel.

(in Italian) So we're able to see, in a single drawing, on the front and reverse sides,...

..Raphael's rapid assimilation of the great innovations that Michelangelo brought to Rome.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) Innovations that came to life on paper.

(Narrator) This is how Raphael explored the feminine universe.

(Narrator) At the time, painters usually employed male models, even to draw women.

(Narrator) But Raphael was not like other painters.

(Narrator) He decided to use real, female models, something no one had ever done before.

It's very interesting to look at his access to female models throughout his career.

And more extraordinarily he is able also to paint nude female models,...

..effectively the first female nudes of the modern period.

(Henry) How did this come about?

(Henry) Well, he seems to have been a lover of women throughout his life,...

..but it also seems that he effectively developed new practices,...

..inviting women to pose for him nude,...

..and that is a trend that starts in this period then becomes very common...

..and is now a standard part of artistic training.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) Raphael needed a breakthrough in his quest for ideal beauty.

(Narrator) There was only one place in Italy where his vision of art...

..could find an infinity of new stimuli: Rome.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) In 1508, when Raphael was 25 years old,...

..he arrived in the Eternal City to become its prince and never to leave it again.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) Before long he became painter to the Pope,...

..creating one of the most famous painting cycles in the world: Raphael's Rooms.

(MUSIC OF "IL GIOVANE PRODIGIO" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) In Rome he could finally observe the classical beauty of antiquity.

(Narrator) He was enthralled, and studied it day and night.

(Narrator) Here he found the inspiration...

..that gave life to his personal, and inimitable, image of woman.

(ROMANTIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) On the seashore appears a nymph called Galatea.

(Narrator) She comes out of the water, revealing herself to the world of mortals,...

..to meet with the man she loves, the shepherd Aci.

(Narrator) The two come together in their idyll of love under the pure light of the moon.

(ROMANTIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) But the stars are not the only ones to witness this triumph of passion.

(Narrator) The Cyclops, Polyphemus, is spying on them.

(Narrator) Consumed with jealousy, in a towering rage...

..he hurls a boulder at the shepherd, killing him.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) In despair, Galatea transforms her lover's blood...

..into the waters of a river, that she navigates in her shell...

..so as to embrace him for all eternity in the waves of the sea.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) In the villa of Agostino Chigi, the richest banker in Rome,...

..Raphael recounted this myth, chancing upon the image of his ideal woman.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Ferrigno, in French) In Galatea's portrait, he captured his ideal of feminine beauty.

(in French) It's the image that comes closest to that ideal.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) Raphael's ideal is well-represented...

..in a famous letter that he wrote to Baldassare Castiglione.

(Farinella, in Italian) In the letter he talked about his Galatea and he jokingly said,...

.."Unfortunately, there's a great shortage of beauty these days".

"There aren't many women as beautiful as that,..."

"..and so all I could do was to create my own idea of beauty".

(in Italian) He used the word "idea", which was very apt.

(in Italian) In a way, the idea of an ideal beauty originated in this very period.

(in Italian) So that helps us understand that the kind of beauty that Raphael perfected...

..in both his female and his male figures,...

..was often a kind of mental or cerebral beauty.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Fossi, in Italian) He took inspiration from the head of one woman,...

..the arms of another, the breasts of another, and the legs of yet another,...

..and in that way he created a figure,...

..that was absolutely idealised, harmonious and classical.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Di Majo, in Italian) In Galatea we see the Roman side of Raphael's art,...

..full of classical references but also strongly influenced by Michelangelo.

(Di Majo, in Italian) The twisting movement of the female figure recalls Leonardo's Leda,...

..but we also notice the physical strength and muscularity...

..of the figures on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.

(Ferrigno, in French) The image of Galatea owes much to the models of classical antiquity.

(Ferrigno, in French) She's there in flesh and blood,...

..and yet at the same time she's somehow absent from the scene.

(in French) She gazes towards the sky with her twisting posture,...

..as though she were aspiring towards something higher,...

..something divine and spiritual.

(Ferrigno, in French) This image of beauty truly encapsulates the quest...

..that lasted throughout Raphael's career.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Henry) Now this allowed him to paint a female nude,...

..she builds on everything that he had studied in Florence from Leonardo.

This exaggerated contrapposto.

It's not a pose you can hold, to twist your body one way,...

..push her leg out, lift your head up high and...

I'm not going to try and do it further than that!

(Henry) This energy allowed him to show off his mastery...

..of these forms of the female nude...

..and to effectively set himself up in contrast to Michelangelo...

..as the painter of the male nude in the Sistine Chapel Ceiling...

..and Raphael as the master of the female nude.

(BIRDS SINGING)

(Narrator) Agostino Chigi was thrilled by the Galatea's whirling energy,...

..and he decided to commission Raphael to decorate the rooms of his villa.

(Narrator) This gave rise...

..to one of the most fascinating pictorial cycles of the painter's career:...

..the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche.

(MUSIC OF "VILLA FARNESINA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Di Majo, in Italian) Agostino, a wealthy banker from Siena,...

..had built his suburban villa in Rome and had just returned there from Venice.

(in Italian) He had a lover in Venice called Francesca Ordeaschi.

(MUSIC OF "VILLA FARNESINA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) The artist had the task of translating...

..the love between Agostino and his future bride Francesca into painting.

(Narrator) But it was a scandalous love affair.

(Narrator) Francesca was a commoner from Venice...

..who wasn't accepted in the circles of Roman high society to which Agostino belonged.

(Narrator) But the banker wasn't going to let etiquette stand in his way...

..and he asked Raphael to tell his story.

(Ferrigno, in French) The Loggia of Cupid and Psyche narrates the trials...

..Psyche has to undergo in order to marry Cupid and be accepted by the Gods of Olympus.

(Ferrigno, in French) So we have ten main episodes that represent the final two scenes...

..of the myth, that is the scene of the council of gods and the marriage of gods.

(MUSIC OF "VILLA FARNESINA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Ferrigno, in French) These two scenes relate directly to the love story...

..between Agostino Chigi and Francesca Ordeaschi.

(Ferrigno, in French) The acceptance on the part of the gods of Olympus...

..represents Francesca's admission into Roman high society.

(MUSIC OF "VILLA FARNESINA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Ferrigno, in French) The garlands of vegetables are really exceptional.

(Ferrigno, in French) They represent an immense variety of species,...

..and it has been pointed out that there are some erotic symbols hidden in there.

(Ferrigno, in French) However, these images were not intended to be obscene.

(Ferrigno, in French) Metaphorically they represent the union of the flesh...

..as a good omen of fertility and prosperity for the young master and mistress of the house.

(MUSIC OF "VILLA FARNESINA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) Raphael seemed unstoppable.

(Narrator) This was his moment of artistic exaltation.

(Narrator) But while he was decorating the Villa Farnesina,...

..his mind was elsewhere and he experienced an artist's block.

(Narrator) A woman had come into his life...

..and he couldn't go on without her.

(Di Majo, in Italian) Raphael couldn't go on.

(in Italian) He was distracted and lost his concentration.

(in Italian) And Agostino Chigi realised...

..that he would have to let him keep his woman and his love by his side.

(in Italian) Only then would he be able to finish the job. And that is what happened.

(in Italian) And so the myth started of this relationship...

..between the painter and his model, a woman he couldn't do without,...

..because she was absolutely indispensable for his art.

(MUSIC OF "LA GIOVANE FORNAIA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) A girl appears at the window of a baker's.

(MUSIC OF "LA GIOVANE FORNAIA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) The painter is enchanted by her beauty...

..and he loses himself in the depths of her brown eyes,...

..in the freshness of her rosy lips...

..and the raven black of her hair, held back by a golden turban.

(Narrator) Her face, reflected in the Tiber, is the image of a goddess.

(MUSIC OF "LA GIOVANE FORNAIA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) This is the legendary tale of how Raphael met his Venus,...

..traditionally identified in a daringly sensual portrait.

(MUSIC OF "LA GIOVANE FORNAIA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) It's important to underline this was a private painting,...

..because it was so highly charged with sensuality...

..it would have been impossible to put it on public display.

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) It was obvious to everyone, so it had to be kept hidden.

(in Italian) It's possible to reconstruct the execution of this work...

..through a series of tests that have been carried out for various exhibitions.

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) And these tests reveal that the picture has had a long history,...

..that is, Raphael probably started off with a very different idea,...

..more in the style of Leonardo.

(in Italian) Infrared reflectography shows the underlying drawing,...

..which is very impromptu,...

..he probably positioned the figure and then drew her from life.

(MUSIC OF "LA GIOVANE FORNAIA" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) The drawing isn't precise,...

..it's just a sketch of the arm, that he then modified.

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) Even the bracelet with the inscription "Raphael Urbinas"...

..was modified and superimposed over the leaves in the background.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Ferrigno, in French) The original title of this painting was Portrait of a Young Woman.

(Ferrigno, in French) In the 18th century, it was given a new name,...

.."la fornarina", by which it is known today.

(Ferrigno, in French) According to popular belief, the fornarina,...

..the daughter of a baker who lived near Villa Farnesina, was Raphael's mistress.

(in French) Raphael fell in love with her soon after he moved to Rome.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) La Fornarina became the prototype of the artist's model lover...

..that has fascinated us ever since.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) A legend that has captivated many, but may not reflect reality.

(Pisani, in Italian) This name, La Fornarina,...

..appears in a caption that was placed under an engraving...

..by Domenico Cunego that bears the date 1772.

(Pisani, in Italian) Domenico Cunego had been commissioned to make engravings...

..of nine masterpieces of Italian art,...

..and beneath the engraving of the so-called "Fornarina",...

..there is the phrase, "Raphaelis Amasia vulgÚ la Fornarina".

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Pisani, in Italian) When this engraving came out,...

..a theory spread like wildfire across the world.

(in Italian) Now everyone believed that the name, or at any rate the nickname,...

..of the woman Raphael loved had finally been discovered.

(Pisani, in Italian) Whereas actually, we're dealing...

..with one of the most colossal misunderstandings in the history of art.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(in Italian) The underlying sense of the term "fornarina",...

..needs to be understood in the context of its traditional double meaning,...

..where "forno", or "oven", was used as a metaphor for the female sexual organ.

(in Italian) All of which goes to show that this use of the term "fornarina"...

..by Domenico Cunego under his engraving, implies that he considered...

..that she was in fact a harlot, that's to say, a young prostitute.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) However, a closer look at the picture can reveal clues...

..that lead to a very different hypothesis about the identity of the subject.

(Ferrigno, in French) The picture gives us several clues

..as to the identity of the protagonist.

(Ferrigno, in French) She's wearing a turban,...

..secured by a pendant with a pearl, a diamond and a ruby.

(Ferrigno, in French) This was a traditional Renaissance jewel,...

..but was usually worn on a bodice, a dress or a scarf.

(in French) Here it appears on a headdress and so takes on another symbolic meaning.

(in French) It signifies that the woman wearing this headdress...

..has gained the honour of wearing it by marrying a man richer than herself,...

..in other words she has married into a higher social rank.

(Ferrigno, in French) The second clue is the ring...

..that the woman wears on her left ring-finger, like a wedding ring.

(Ferrigno, in French) Restoration work has revealed...

..that the ring originally bore a precious stone with a star,...

..that was very probably the emblem of the Chigi family.

(in French) However, the detail of the ring was later covered over...

..with a layer of flesh-coloured paint.

(in French) This, in effect, obscured a vital clue to the true identity of the woman.

(in French) I believe that all these details show a surprising coincidence...

..with the story of Francesca Ordeaschi, the wife of Agostino Chigi.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) We'll probably never know her real identity.

(Narrator) She remains a nameless goddess in the world of mortals.

(Narrator) And yet it is believed that her face encountered Raphael's brush once more,...

..when he painted her in another famous portrait: La Velata,...

..the woman with a veil.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) One woman nude and the other dressed.

(Narrator) They could be two faces of the same Venus.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Pisani, in Italian) What we're seeing is the sublimation of feminine beauty.

(Pisani, in Italian) In fact, he represents a celestial Venus and a terrestrial Venus.

(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

(Henry) Of all Raphael's portraits of women,...

..the most extraordinary is La Velata in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

(Henry) Raphael would very frequently in his portraits use an element,...

..it might be a hat, it might be a gesture, to create the distance in space.

In this case the veil that goes around the female sitter's head...

..creates a series of lights and shadows fall across her body.

(Henry) She then has this low-cut dress and jewellery around her neck,...

..all painted with great love and attention.

(Henry) And then, just to make the picture not too perfect,...

..a little curl, human touch, a wisp of hair escapes from the rest of her hairdo...

..and kind of falls across her face...

..and it gives it a realism that makes the portrait instantly engaging.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) In Rome, inspired by the love of his life,...

..he created an image of feminine beauty...

..which came even closer to the ideal he had always pursued.

(Narrator) But in the last years of his life,...

..Raphael was also interested in another kind of beauty,...

..that of classical antiquity.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) It was a world that still harboured many surprises,...

..but he didn't yet know that, to find them,...

..he would have to gaze not at the sky but into the depths of the earth.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) In the darkness of the Eternal City a world existed that had yet to be discovered.

(Narrator) A dark, subterranean world that Raphael yearned to unearth.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) With only a torch to light his way, the young prodigy descended into a dark cave.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) Monsters,...

animals, mythological creatures.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael was a curious and enterprising archaeologist.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) That cave was a recently discovered site,...

..the last remains of one of the most sumptuous villas of ancient Rome:...

..the Domus Aurea.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

He started to be part of a circle of friends who would explore Rome,...

..go into the Domus Aurea, which at that point involved...

..descending down into dark cavernous spaces with torches...

..to explore the buried ruins of the Domus Aurea...

..or going out on excursions, be that in the area inside the Roman walls.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) During his years in Rome, Raphael became...

..an extraordinary connoisseur of ancient architecture, sculpture and painting.

(in Italian) He was a real archaeologist.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) His fascination with grotesque paintings,...

..many of which could be seen buried in the remains of the Domus Aurea,...

..is particularly significant.

(in Italian) These "grotesques" were remarkably creative paintings,...

..where the free play of the imagination spawned fantastic monsters...

..and figures in transformation.

(Farinella, in Italian) They were full of irrational, unrealistic images.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(in Italian) Raphael fell in love with them and from that moment on...

..became the greatest painter of grotesque art, which is typical of Raphael.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) A perfect example of grotesque art...

..can be admired in the Vatican Loggias, known today as the Raphael Loggias.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) A vast fauna springs to life on the walls,...

..where animals dance in a riot of colour reminiscent of ancient Rome.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) To complete this commission,...

..Raphael set up a construction site with all his assistants.

(Narrator) He used everyone in his workshop to create these decorations,...

..the like of which had never been seen before.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Di Majo, in Italian) The way Raphael managed his work site...

..was very particular and very organised.

(in Italian) From 1514-15, when he was working in the Rome of Leo X,...

..he took on a lot of different jobs.

(in Italian) There were important architectural and urban commissions...

..and he started to run out of time.

(Di Majo, in Italian) Raphael wasn't lazy, he was a great worker,...

..he was a genius after all,...

..but he couldn't possibly complete all those commissions by himself.

(Di Majo, in Italian) At this point, in his workshop,...

..he not only had Giulio Romano and Giovan Francesco Penni,...

..who were already working for him, and Giovanni da Udine,...

..who was doing the stucco work, festoon decorations and the grotesques,...

..he also had a lot of young boys who came in from all over Italy.

(in Italian) These boys were 15 or 16, so Raphael's Vatican Loggias were completed...

..by a group of boys who flocked there from every corner of Italy...

..to learn their trade on the work site of the greatest living master.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) The young prodigy had become the greatest master in Rome.

(Narrator) But his quest for beauty was unstoppable.

(Narrator) In the Eternal City, Raphael studied the remains of classical antiquity...

..more closely than ever, convinced that this was the only way...

..to get to the very origins of artistic perfection.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) Classical antiquity had everything.

(Farinella, in Italian) There was feminine beauty, apollonian beauty,...

..idealised and dramatic beauty.

(in Italian) So there was an infinite source of inspiration for an artist like Raphael.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Rome was an endless source of inspiration for Raphael,...

..it was his muse, to be loved and protected.

(Narrator) He decided to commit himself to preserving...

..the magnificent treasures of the Roman empire.

(Narrator) And in a famous letter to Pope Leo X,...

..the artist spoke out against the poor conservation of this precious heritage.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) "It pains me to behold this city,..."

"..which was once the queen of the world,..."

"..so wretchedly wounded as to be almost a corpse."

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) The letter to Leo X was edited in the last years of Raphael's life,...

..in around 1519,...

..so that it could become the introduction to the great archaeological work...

..that Raphael was planning at the time.

(in Italian) A sort of reconstruction of ancient Rome.

(Di Majo, in Italian) He implemented a detailed programme...

..to survey and catalogue all the antiquities of Classical Rome.

(in Italian) His understanding of ancient artefacts clearly grew as a result.

(in Italian) He acquired greater awareness and developed the idea of conservation...

..through knowledge and study, a concept that could still guide us today.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) The Pope appointed Raphael Prefect of antiquities.

(Narrator) He was the first person in the history of Rome to receive this title...

..and it crowned the artist as the entrepreneur of visionary undertakings.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) This colossal, archaeological work was unfortunately never to see the light of day.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael was in the prime of life,...

..full of energy and with an irrepressible desire to experiment.

(Narrator) Not yet 40 years old, he unleashed his artistic flair,...

..reaching the peak of his career, unaware of the ill luck fate had in store for him.

(SOUND OF GUNSHOTS AND BOMBS DROPPED)

(Narrator) The fire of the allied bombers burns the freezing air of the German winter.

(Narrator) It's 1945 and the city of Dresden has been razed to the ground,...

..bringing the Nazi Regime to its knees.

(Narrator) Hell reigns above ground,...

..but down in a train tunnel not far from the city,...

..sixty crates full of works of art lie hidden.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) The war ended a few months later.

(Narrator) Germany had lost and Soviet troops discovered the tunnel.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) Among the works of art they found a painting of a mother embracing her child.

(SUSPENSE MUSIC)

(Narrator) The picture was taken to Moscow,...

..where a Russian reporter of Jewish background looked into the eyes of the woman...

..and recognised the faces of all the mothers who had died in the holocaust.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) The picture was one of Raphael's most famous paintings:...

..the Sistine Madonna.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Those dark spellbinding eyes, painted in the 1500s,...

..gaze at us across the centuries.

(Narrator) Open to so many interpretations,...

..in this case they seem to condemn the tragedy of a world war.

(Narrator) This too is the power of Raphael's art.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) The Sistine Madonna is a very striking work,...

..because it marked a real revolution in the field of altarpieces.

(Farinella, in Italian) The image that is so familiar to us...

..would have caused a sensation at the time,...

..because the Madonna holding her child is shown as a divine apparition,...

..on a bank of clouds, as she advances towards the spectator.

(in Italian) There is a curtain that opens before our eyes, a curtain,...

..hung by rings on a rod that bends before us as the curtains open.

(Farinella, in Italian) And the Madonna is walking towards the spectator...

..with the figures of two saints...

..who somehow allude to the Madonna or point to the viewer outside the painting.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) So the picture has this incredible capacity to involve us,...

..the spectators, as though we were witnessing a kind of holy theatre.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Two cherubs in the foreground look almost bored...

..as they watch the scene above their heads, as though leaning on the balcony of a theatre.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Those two little angels...

..count among the most recognizable images of Italian Renaissance art,...

..and are part of a painting that was, for centuries, the most famous in the world.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) The Sistine Madonna has quite a strange history.

(Farinella, in Italian) Through the 15- and 1600s, it was rather left to one side.

(in Italian) Then, in the middle of the 1700s it was sold...

..and sent out of Italy to Dresden, where it was housed in a spectacular museum...

..as part of a large collection of Italian masterpieces.

(in Italian) And from that moment it became extremely famous,...

..certainly the most famous work by Raphael...

..and possibly the most famous work of art in the world.

(Farinella, in Italian) And then what happened?

(Farinella, in Italian) Suddenly, in 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre,...

..in a really daring crime like something out of a novel.

(Farinella, in Italian) It was found a year later in Italy,...

..and its disappearance, which had become world news...

..and had been reported in all the newspapers and in the press and so on,...

..all that made the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world practically overnight.

(in Italian) So you could say that the Sistine Madonna had been considered...

..the most fascinating, celebrated, copied and imitated work of art in the world...

..from the middle of the 1700s until the beginning of the 1900s,...

..and then the Mona Lisa myth overturned everything.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) During his Roman period, Raphael created universal icons,...

..that became the protagonists of incredible sagas,...

..and inspired evocative, almost magical stories.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Narrator) Legend, myth and a little magic...

..surround one of the painter's last masterpieces,...

..that can be found among the pages of a German fable from 1800:...

..the Madonna della Seggiola, an everlasting symbol of maternity.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

(Henry) The Madonna della Seggiola is the last...

..of Raphael's great circular paintings, so called "tondi".

He has perfected the idea of how to show a group of figures in a circular composition.

(Henry) The Virgin Mary in the Madonna della Seggiola...

..seems both at ease...

..but also at once anticipating her loss when Christ will die.

(Henry) That is his destiny.

(Henry) The child holds the central position,...

..is close to, and in a relationship with his mother,...

..and yet her role is that little bit more distant that little bit more melancholic.

It is of course striking for an artist who lost his own parents when he was very young.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) The Madonnas are basically the paintings...

..for which Raphael is most famous: their tenderness and beauty are outstanding.

(in Italian) There's something we should bear in mind, however,...

..and that is that over the course of his life he absorbed so much,...

..he was constantly looking and learning, and so was constantly changing.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) This word, "metamorphosis", captures another element..

..that was typical of Raphael and that we perhaps appreciate even more today,...

..that is the capacity to keep changing,...

..like the great contemporary artists, and to never be the same thing twice.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Farinella, in Italian) It's enough to compare his early works,...

..those painted around 1500, with his last works from around 1519 -1520,...

..to understand that we're looking at two completely different artists.

(in Italian) If we didn't know from documents and sources of the time...

..that the works were by the same painter,...

..we art historians would probably be hypothesizing about two different artists.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) The peak of Raphael's metamorphosis can be seen in his last painting,...

..the Transfiguration of Christ.

(Narrator) The German philosopher Nietzsche described it as "a world of apollonian beauty".

(Narrator) It is a work that stands out for its dynamic drama:...

(MUSIC OF "LOGGE VATICANE" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

..it is two pictures in one.

(Narrator) Raphael depicts two distinct moments in the Gospel story...

..as taking place at the same time.

(MUSIC OF "LOGGE VATICANE" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) The Master of Urbino overturns the time sequence of the story.

(MUSIC OF "LOGGE VATICANE" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) The upper half shows the apparition of the risen Christ...

..as he reveals himself to his disciples, bathed in divine light,...

..whereas the lower half shows a later episode:...

..the healing of the possessed boy, freed by Christ from his demons by a miracle,...

..for "all things are possible to him that believes".

(MUSIC OF "LOGGE VATICANE" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Farinella, in Italian) The two episodes are juxtaposed,...

..and they're two episodes that Raphael manages to contrast...

..not only from an iconographical point of view, but also from a stylistic one.

(Farinella, in Italian) Because, in the upper half, with the apparition of Christ,...

..we have this blaze of light that is almost pre-baroque,...

..whereas in the lower half, where the shadows are much darker...

..and where we have these extraordinary portraits of the apostles,...

..that emerge from the shadows with the light falling on them,...

..we seem to have a kind of prophecy of the Caravaggio-style painting of the early 1600s.

(MUSIC OF "LOGGE VATICANE" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Farinella, in Italian) So, if we think that a picture by Raphael from 1520...

..could have foretold the great naturalist, baroque art of the 1600s,...

..we can understand just what an extraordinary impact, I'd say second to none,...

..Raphael's painting had in the following centuries.

(MUSIC OF "LOGGE VATICANE" BY F. RUGGIERO, A. PALOMBO)

(Narrator) In 1520 Raphael fell gravely ill.

(Narrator) The Transfiguration was hung by his bedside.

(Narrator) The painter was able to admire his work before closing his eyes for the last time.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) "A great lover of women...

..who indulged beyond measure in the pleasures of the flesh."

(Narrator) This is how Giorgio Vasari described Raphael's passion for women,...

..suggesting that erotic overindulgence could have led to the painter's death.

(in Italian) It's probably an invented anecdote.

(in Italian) It may have a kernel of truth, like most anecdotes,...

..but it was probably just a made-up story.

(in Italian) He almost certainly died of pneumonia.

(in Italian) Both the serious medical studies...

..carried out on Raphael's remains in the 1930s,...

..that pointed to a series of symptoms and documentary evidence...

..seem to indicate that he died of pneumonia.

(Narrator) The most celestial artist of the Italian Renaissance...

..was buried in Rome, in an ancient temple dedicated to the gods: the Pantheon.

(Narrator) It was an honour reserved for very few,...

..almost as though he were a divinity himself.

(Pisani, in Italian) If we think that it was his destiny to die...

..on the night between Good Friday and Easter Saturday,...

..it means he died on the same night as Jesus Christ.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(Narrator) He was a prodigy of nature, as the epitaph on his tomb reminds us.

(Narrator) "In his life, nature feared defeat and in his death, she herself feared to die."

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) Raphael has always been considered not a saint exactly,...

..but analogies have been made between his life and that of Christ.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Mochi Onori, in Italian) He was considered a paragon of good grace,...

..of goodness, of kindness, he was loved by all.

(in Italian) So Raphael was far from the prototype of the troubled painter,...

..on the contrary he was blessed.

(in Italian) He was loved by both his patrons and his colleagues.

(in Italian) He was never hated and he was at peace with the world...

..and also with his fortune, because he became very wealthy.

(in Italian) His achievements were remarkable, he was a very successful painter.

(TOLLING BELLS)

(Narrator) A procession moves from Castel Sant'Angelo to the Pantheon.

(Narrator) Carts, horses and armed men set the pace.

(Narrator) Behind them streams a crowd of artists,...

..with flaming torches held high in honour of the great painter.

(Narrator) Cardinals and Swiss Guards follow on.

(Narrator) From the windows, women throw flowers onto the coffin of the artist...

..who won their hearts more than any other.

(Narrator) It could almost be the funeral of a prince, and perhaps it is.

(Narrator) And so Rome salutes its young prodigy for the last time.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) Raphael died on the 6th April 1520.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

(Narrator) But ideal beauty lives on,...

..thanks to him.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)