A BIT IN DEEP: SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO

Sebastiano del Piombo was a great portraitist, but he was accused of having little inventive and to be slow painting more complex compositions, so as to leave them unfinished sometimes as happened for the altarpiece of the Chigi Chapel.

On the other hand Michelangelo used the "friend Sebastian" against Raphael, helping him in every way.
It so happened that when Raphael died prematurely in 1520, one of the Raphael Rooms, the Hall of Constantine, still had to be painted.

3 days after his death Sebastian wrote to Michelangelo, asking for his intervention for Pope Leo X entrusted him the decoration of the Hall of Constantine. Michelangelo wrote to Cardinal Bibiena, the most intimate collaborator of the Pope, in favor of Sebastian, but the cardinal, considering that Raphael had prepared the cartoons for the frescoes, preferred the young Giulio Romano, the main help of Raphael, to continue the work of the master.

Sebastian did not agree it by writing to Michelangelo, that the cardinal chose in his place, "the boys" of Raphael.

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