Raphael Part 7

Blind old Homer advances chanting the adventures of the Greek heroes, and an eager youth writes down the verses. Behind him are Virgil and Dante, and Virgil seems to be calling on Dante to listen to Apollo.

Another group shows Pindar, a very aged figure, reciting his impa.s.sioned odes to Horace and another poet, who listen with admiration. Plautus and Terence, two writers of Latin comedy, walk together in pleasant companions.h.i.+p.

It was not an easy matter to dispose of the many figures and groups in a s.p.a.ce cut into, as this wall is, by a window, but how free and how natural is the arrangement! It was among the first great paintings which Raphael executed in the Vatican, and the grace and harmony which mark his later works are here shown.

The picture is interesting also as another ill.u.s.tration of the great revival of learning which took place in Raphael's day. The old literature of Greece and Rome had been rediscovered. For centuries it had lain like a buried city, forgotten under the ignorance and the fighting of the Middle Ages. Now it was brought to light, and the recovered treasure was the common possession of Italy, not indeed so much of the plain people as of the learned men and the artists.

Raphael, as an artist, took delight in the statues which had been found, and the other signs of Greek and Roman art; but it is not to be supposed that he would know Homer and Virgil and Horace and Pindar and Sappho at first hand. He had, however, friends among the learned men, who could tell him of the treasures of cla.s.sic literature, and his imagination was quick to seize this material and adapt it to artistic purposes.

NOTE.--The key to Parna.s.sus on page 61 is based on the description of the painting in Cav. E. G. Ma.s.si's "Descrizione delle Gallerie di Pittura nel Pontificio Palazzo Vaticano," the authoritative guide-book to the Vatican. Miss Eliza Allen Starr, in her monograph on the frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura, called "The Three Keys," identifies some of the figures differently, following the authority of Dandolo's lectures. The "unknown" figure she calls Sordello.

XII

SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES

In the same room which holds Parna.s.sus, with Poetry above on the ceiling, there is another wall painting by Raphael, which commonly bears the name of The School of Athens, though that name was not originally applied to it. In the ceiling above is a figure representing Philosophy, and the picture below carries out the idea in its presentation of an a.s.sembly of scholars.

Just as in Parna.s.sus Raphael brought together as in a beautiful dream the G.o.d of poetry, the nine muses, and famous poets of the ancient and what was to him the modern world, so, in the School of Athens, he has a.s.sembled a great company of philosophers, chiefly out of the famous line of Greek scholars. In a general way he has divided the a.s.sembly into two groups, one of men who devote themselves to pure thought, the other of those who apply their thought to science, like geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music.

There are more than fifty figures in this great painting. Raphael has made it clear whom he meant to represent, in many cases. They were the philosophers, whom his friends among the cardinals and learned men were so enthusiastic about. But he has also gathered about these teachers those who might be their pupils; they are in many cases young Italians of his own day; indeed, he has even pictured himself coming in with a fellow artist.

What interested him was to paint a great number of persons who should show by their faces and their att.i.tudes that they were busy, in an animated way, over what was worth thinking about. He placed them in a n.o.ble hall, with a domed recess at the end, such as a great architect of his day might have built. He showed a n.o.ble colonnade of pillars, and he placed in niches statues of the old Greek G.o.ds like Apollo and Minerva, who would be supposed to take an interest in what was going on.

The picture is so large and has so many figures that it would not be easy to reproduce it here, and give a good idea of its various parts; so a portion only is shown, depicting what is commonly known as the group of Socrates and Alcibiades. Socrates can surely be distinguished, for he had a singular face and head. Some have thought the companion was not Alcibiades, but Xenophon.

It does not greatly matter. Each was his companion and pupil, when he was living. Xenophon wrote a narrative of his master's life and death.

Alcibiades is often mentioned in the dialogues of Plato, who also has preserved for us the great sayings of Socrates. Two or three men stand about, listening to a discussion which Socrates is having with his companion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES _Vatican Palace, Rome_]

The chief interest centres in Socrates, who seems to be explaining his principles, telling them off, one by one, on his fingers. In the old accounts which we have of this philosopher, he is shown to have been a man who had thought deeply about the most important things, but used the plainest, most homely speech when he was trying to make his meaning clear. His plain face and eccentric figure were a familiar sight in the market places, where he used to linger, drawing young men into conversation, by which he tried to show them the better things of life.

Alcibiades was, as Socrates acknowledged, "the fairest and tallest of the citizens;" he was also "among the n.o.blest of them," and the nephew of the powerful Athenian, Pericles. Moreover, he was rich, though this was a smaller matter. All these things, however, had lifted Alcibiades up; and with the vanity of youth, he was ambitious for a great oratorical career, without having in reality any sufficient preparation. It is at this juncture that he falls in with Socrates, who begins to question him kindly about his plans. The young man confesses his ambitions, and the philosopher innocently asks him where and how he has made his preparatory studies. Alcibiades seems to think that the ordinary subjects of oratory, such as questions of war and peace, justice and injustice, need no special knowledge but that learned of the people.

"I cannot say that I have a high opinion of your teachers," says the shrewd old philosopher; "you know that knowledge is the first qualification of any teacher?"

_Alcibiades._ Certainly.

_Socrates._ And if they know, they must agree together and not differ?

_Alcibiades._ Yes.

_Socrates._ And would you say that they knew the things about which they differ?

_Alcibiades._ No.

_Socrates._ Then how can they teach them?

_Alcibiades._ They cannot.[9]

So little by little, as one question follows another, Alcibiades comes to see that the popular knowledge upon which he depends is a very weak and variable thing. He confesses at last his own folly, and declares his resolution to devote himself to thoughtful study.

[Footnote 9: From Plato's dialogue, _Alcibiades_, Jowett's translation.]

XIII

THE FLIGHT OF aeNEAS

In the series of rooms in the Vatican palace, of which one contains Parna.s.sus, and another the Expulsion of Heliodorus and the Liberation of Peter, there is a room, the first of the series, which is called the Room of the Great Fire, because it contains a large picture of the Conflagration in the Borgo.

The Borgo is that quarter of Rome where the Vatican stands, and in the ninth century there was, one day, a great fire there. It was said that the fire was put out by the Pope of that time, Leo IV., who stood in a portico connected with the church of St. Peter, and made the sign of the cross.

Raphael was bidden make a painting upon one wall of the room, which should represent the scene, and in his characteristic fas.h.i.+on he made it to be not merely a copy of what he might suppose the scene to have been; he introduced a poetic element, which at once made the piece a work of great imagination.

A poet, who was describing such an event, might use an ill.u.s.tration from some other great historic fire. He might have said in effect: "In this burning of the Borgo, men could have been seen carrying the aged away on their shoulders, as when in ancient times Troy was burned, and aeneas bore his father Anchises away from the falling timbers."

This is exactly what Raphael did in painting. In the background of the picture is seen Pope Leo IV. with his clergy, in the portico of the old church of St. Peter's. The Pope's hand is raised, making the sign of the cross; on the steps of the church are the people who have fled to it for refuge. On each side of the foreground are burning houses.

Men are busy putting out the fire, and women are bringing them water.

Other men and women and children are escaping from the flames, and some are heroically saving the weak and helpless.

It is amongst these last that Raphael has placed the group called the Flight of aeneas. The Trojan bears on his shoulders his father, the old, blind Anchises. Behind is Creusa, the wife of aeneas, looking back with terror upon the burning city, and by the side of aeneas is his young son Iulus, looking up into his face with a trusting gaze.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FLIGHT OF aeNEAS _Vatican Palace, Rome_]

Some one of Raphael's friends had no doubt told him the story, or read it to him out of Virgil's aeneid, which was one of the favorite books in that day, when men were delighting in the recovery of the great poetry of Greece and Rome. Here is a part of the story as told by Virgil in the translation by C. P. Cranch:--

"But when I reached my old paternal home, My father, whom I wished to bear away To the high mountains, and who first of all I sought, refused to lengthen out his life, And suffer exile, now that Troy was lost.

'O ye,' he said, 'whose blood is full of life, Whose solid strength in youthful vigor stands,-- Plan ye your flight! But if the heavenly powers Had destined me to live, they would have kept For me these seats. Enough, more than enough, That one destruction I have seen, and I Survive the captured city. Go ye then, Bidding this frame farewell--thus, lying thus Extended on the earth! I shall find death From some hand.'

'O father, dost thou think That I can go and leave thee here alone?

Comes such bad counsel from my father's lips?

If't is the pleasure of the G.o.ds that naught From the whole city should be left, and this Is thy determined thought and wish, to add To peris.h.i.+ng Troy thyself and all thy kin,-- The gate lies open for that death desired.'"

So saying, aeneas calls for his arms, resolved to remain with Father Anchises fighting the Greeks to the death. Thereupon Creusa his wife begins to weep, begging him not to leave her and her little boy Iulus to perish in the flames. In the midst of her lamentations a sacred omen is given, in the appearance of lambent flames playing about the head of Iulus. Anchises is convinced of the will of the G.o.ds.

"'Now, now,' he cries, 'for us no more delay!

I follow; and wherever ye may lead, G.o.ds of my country, I will go! Guard ye My family, my little grandson guard.

This augury is yours; and yours the power That watches Troy. And now, my son, I yield, Nor will refuse to go along with thee.'

And now through all the city we can hear The roaring flames, which nearer roll their heat.