PROFANE RENAISSANCE ART
To understand the elements of the design of Raphael is worth recalling that he devoted most of his time to the study, especially of classical antiquity, in this facilitated from the papal office of "custody and registration of antique marbles". At the center of his investigation was the Pantheon, the Baths of Trajan and the underlying Domus Aurea, in which it is said that it let himself down from the top for access to those areas, which having become underground caves were called “grotte” (=caves), and grotesque the paintings.
The grotesque had a dramatic impact on the artists of the time, as you can guess by recalling that the great Roman pictorial cycles, such as the frescoes of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabia, or those of the Villa of Livia a Prima Porta, would be brought to light some centuries later.
These grotesque inspired Raphael to create a great environment completely frescoed.
The loggia was then designed by Raphael, while the paintings were built largely by his workshop. The modus operandi of the workshop was particularly: Raphael prepared the drawings, the shop transposed them in cartoons, that Raphael himself revised, the workshop painted the fresco, Raphael finally reserved to himself the face of some painting and the final touch.
In the loggia of Cupid and Psyche the hand of Raphael appears predominantly in the two frescoes on the ceiling: the Council of the Gods and the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche.
Due to the way in which the workshop of Raphael painted is hard to attribute this or that master the authorship of the paintings. Art historians agree that the festoons in which are painted 200 plant species, are the hand of Giovanni da Udine (1487-1581), who always alongside Raphael painted the grotesque of the Vatican loggias.
GGiovanni is buried in the Pantheon near Raphael.
Among the artists who painted the Loggia of Psyche, conspicuous was the intervention of the great Giulio Romano (1487 – 1581), also great as an architect and as such, near by on the Janiculum, built the Villa Lante and at Mantua the famous Tea Palace. After the death of Raphael Giulio, who was his most authoritative help, inherited the shop.
In addition to Giulio Romano other frescoes are due to Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488 - 1528) and Raffaellino del Colle (1495 - 1566).
Raphael's workshop was unique in its own way and certainly diametrically opposed to that of Michelangelo, whose aid was confined to the preparation of colors and plaster frescoes. On the contrary Raphael delegating aid significant parts of the works favored their artistic growth, so that in his workshop, in addition to those mentioned above, worked as artists Lorenzetto, Perin del Vaga, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Guillaume de Marcillat, Alonso Berruguete, Thomas Vincidor Vincenzo Tamagni.
You really believe that to be near Raffaello was inevitable learn the art!
Says Vasari, who also often shoot heavy, that the gestation of the Lodge was complex:
“It was at this time in Rome the Sienese merchant Agostino Chisi rich and great, which besides the business take account of all the virtuous people and especially of architects, painters and sculptors, and among others had taken great friendship with Rafaello...
...But (Rafaello) could not attend to work for the very love that led to his lover (the Fornarina), for which Agostino was in despair - but the wily Agostino - just got Fornarina to stay with him all the time, in that part where Rafaello worked, which was the reason that the work was in order.
Made in this work all the boxes and many figures in fresh colors of his hand”
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