500 years after his death, Raphael was taken away from us once more.
 
The great exhibition organised in Rome at the Scuderie del Quirinale was closed due to the pandemics, and we are deprived of the possibility of seeing the over 500 artworks gathered for the occasion.

However, there have been many more celebrations and learning opportunities. We leave to scholars to illustrate paintings’ history, to study provenance and hidden meanings.

Art-Test likes to remember this great master, by analysing other aspects: his technique, as emerges both by the results of investigations performed by us, and published databases, the more recent discoveries, the hazardous attributions, but also his home in Urbino, and the controversies regarding the transportation of his paintings for the Rome exhibition.

(Click on the links to see more insights, as already published on our site or on our social media)

Raphael died at just 37 years and he is buried in Rome in the Pantheon. In front of his sarcophagus, there is a beautiful couplet in Latin, written after his death by Pietro Bembo, which reads as follows:
"ILLE HIC EST RAPHAEL TIMUIT QUO SOSPITE VINCI RERUM MAGNA PARENS ET MORIENTE MORI"
i.e.: "Here is Raphael, while he lived he feared be exceeded by Mother Nature, and when he died Mother Nature was afraid to die with him."

However, despite everything, Raphael never really died, his art is still with us. Nature seems worse off.

 
 

Visiting the artists at their homes

It is clear that in order to avoid as much as possible the possibility of contracting COVID19, social distancing is the first weapon.

We have to stay home. However, it could have been worse. The house, for those lucky enough to have one, is our kingdom, it reflects who we are, what we want. And since nobody forbids us virtually, we visited the home of our mutual friends, the artists, to see where they lived, and also what has become of their homes.

To learn more click on the links. They will take you to the posts already published on our site and on our Facebook / Instagram / Twitter accounts.

The first is Monet’s in Giverny, 70 km from Paris. He lived in this house for 43 years, from 1883 to 1926. He took care of his garden to the point that it became his greatest muse.

Then we went to Rubens' house, who had fallen in love with the Italian buildings seen during his Grand Tour. And who, on returning from Italy, thought of making a business of it. He restructured his house in Italian style and offered himself as an architect.

Michelangiolo, on the other hand, for all his life dreamt of a house worthy of his noble family who had lost status and money. And bought 5 houses to build a real palace for himself and his family.

Even the architect Gaudi renovated the Battlo’ house putting in it everything he had dreamed of in it.

And who knows what dreams Raphael had when he was still a child in the house in Urbino where he lived and trained, at the school of his father, Giovanni Santi, also an established painter.

You can also visit the house where Frida Kahlo was born and where she went to live in 1950 with her several times husband Diego Rivera, who after the death of his wife wanted the house to become a public place.