Author: * DIonysia Xanthippos -
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Date: May 14, 2008 - 23:12
RAPHAEL'S SCHOOL OF ATHENS
by Silenos Socrates and Dionysia Xanthippos
(Click on highlighted words to open more images.)
In 1508, upon hearing from his architect Bramante of the abilities of the twenty-five-year-old Raphael, Julius II ordered him from Florence. Once in Rome, Raphael was told by the pope to destroy the paintings on the walls of his council chambers in the Vatican Palace: to plaster over the frescoes by Piero della Francesca, Signorelli, Perugino, Raphael's friend Sodoma and the rest, and to cover the walls of the rooms now known as the Stanze of Raphael with subjects of his own choice.
While Michelangelo was next door painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling his version of the Christian world, Raphael was painting on the walls of the Vatican Palace his vision of the world of Humanist thought. It is true that the soaring vaults of Raphael's temple also recall the vaults of a real-world ruin: the Baths of Caracalla, which Raphael doubtless visited and studied while in Rome. But Raphael called his picture "The School of Athens." And by this he meant, not any school that actually existed there, such as Plato's Academy, but an ideal community of intellects from the entire classical world. To house this ideal vision, Raphael created this airy, spacious hall that recalls the "temples raised by philosophy" written of by the Roman poet Lucretius.
THE DIALECTIC OF IDEAS; THE GEOMETRY & ARCHITECTURE OF THE PAINTING
Within the clear, uncluttered space of this imaginary setting Raphael displays, like classical statues or clear and distinct ideas, idealized portraits of his contemporaries to represent the major figures of classical wisdom and science.
Dissenting from his teacher's extreme idealism, his blue-robed student Aristotle points with his right hand straight ahead out into the solid world of material reality, into the world of physical science and practical reason. In his left hand Aristotle holds his ETHICS.
These two Athenian philosophers are placed to left and right of an invisible central axis that divides them, and of a central vanishing point that disappears, in the distance between their heads, at a point at Infinity: in other words, in the mind of God.
Corresponding to this point in the visual distance is a similar point in the viewer's eye and mind. This is the apex of a visual pyramid or cone of vision whose base is the surface of the wall before him, on which the painting stands like a mirror. From that surface as a base another visual cone or pyramid recedes into the distance in the picture, focussing at the central vanishing point. In that pictorial pyramid or cone, its most prominent contour lines or "rays" are those which follow the ceiling lines or cornices where the half-barrel vaults overhead meet the walls. These two strong diagonals, along with those leading back from the floor pattern, lead the eye irresistibly to the central vanishing point where they all converge.
Note how the series of concentric circles from the vaults, beginning with the outermost semi-circle of the Stanze arch in front, culminates in the inner circle around the heads of Plato and Aristotle. The circle is an ancient symbol of perfection: therefore these circles, especially the inmost one, represent the mind of God, which encompasses the minds of both philosophers. This is a neo-Platonic mystical idea of God which was circulating in Italy in Raphael's day. Raphael and his friends were members of a philosophical circle in Rome that was intent on reconciling the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, whose differences threatened to persist into the Renaissance, dividing the moderns as they had the ancients. Florence was a hotbed of Platonism, whereas Milan was proud of its Aristotelian worldliness and encyclopaedic collection of scientists and engineers. And it is still said that everyone is born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian.
But Raphael and his friends held that the ancient dispute between idealism and realism was only a semantic one: that Plato and Aristotle "agree in substance while they disagree in words." On matters of substance, any point in Plato could be translated into a proposition of Aristotle, and vice versa. The verbal difference was that Plato wrote in poetic images, while Aristotle used his new logic and four-cause analysis.
 If you look at Leonardo da Vinci's red-chalk self-portrait here, you will recognize him in the School of Athens. It is Leonardo who is painted as the reincarnated Plato. Though Leonardo was more of a naturalist than an idealist, there was in him a certain dreamy and romantic quality — his visionary schemes hardly ever being realized in the real world. And perhaps it is that slightly quixotic quality which makes him, as it makes each of us, a Platonist?
Above the figures arrayed on Plato's side stands, in his niche, a naked statue of Apollo, patron god of poetry and the fine arts. Note Apollo's pose: he stands in the classical contraposto pose that goes way back to the Greek "Canon" of Polycleitus. But this Apollo, like his lyre, exhibits also a limpness, a curvaceous softness, that suggests something epicene: something hermaphroditic and at least as dionysian as apollonian, as feminine as masculine. Equally androgynous, on Aristotle's side, is the figure in the opposite niche: Athena, goddess of reason, clad in her traditional full battle dress, complete with spear, helmet and Gorgon-headed shield, which turns to stone all who gaze upon it.
Another curious criss-cross involves the heads of the two philosophers. When seen as the end points of the main diagonal axes of the painting, the heads of Apollo and Athena line up with the heads of Plato and Aristotle. Apollo lines up with Plato's head, and Athena with Aristotle's. The point where those diagonals intersect is the "divine center" between the two philosophers.
Arrayed on either side of Plato or Aristotle are the main thinkers of the classical world. The philosophers, poets and abstract thinkers are allied on Plato's side. The physical scientists and more empirical thinkers are on the side of Aristotle. Only a few of these ancient thinkers can be identified with much success. But the fresco's great variety is constructed out of many discrete groups of figures, each group with its own center and focal point. And within most of these, the central thinker is identifiable.
To the left of Plato the woman with the child is said to be the poet Sappho.
THE SOCRATES GROUP
  The balding, snub-nosed man in a rather shabby olive robe is Socrates. To draw him, Raphael didn't have to embarrass a friend, or find a bum in the street, to sit as his model. For in the Capitoline Museum in Rome sat this 3rd century marble bust, made by or copied from Lysippos, who created the bronze statue of Socrates that the Athenians, after executing and banishing Socrates' accusers, set up in their Hall of Processions.
Famously ugly, Socrates was compared in Plato's "Symposium" to Silenus, a mythical old goat-man or satyr. Yet he could enchant young men on the streets of Athens by his withering cross-examinations of self-styled wise men.
Next to Socrates is his pupil Xenophon, then still in his twenties. But he's no longer paying attention to his teacher. Instead, he's gazing up over him into the distance at upper right. Perhaps he's dreaming of becoming a famous general and writer — both of which he eventually became. Maybe he's looking at Athena, admiring her armor if not her wisdom. He's certainly not looking at Apollo. From Xenophon's "Anabasis" we learn that when he told Socrates his dream of joining the troops of King Cyrus of Persia, Socrates advised him to first consult Apollo's oracle at Delphi. And he did. But he asked only if he would succeed. He failed to ask the god whether he should go or not go. Socrates was not pleased by this evasion, and rebuked him for it.
Directly across from Socrates is a handsome and brilliant student, already famous as a leader of men. Some see this fellow as Alexander the Great. But Alexander could not have known Socrates, who, in 399 BC, nearly fifty years before Alexander was born, was executed for impiety and corrupting young men. Besides, Alexander was the pupil of Aristotle, lured away from Athens by Philip II to tutor his son in Macedonia. So this self-assured dandy decked out in golden armor must be that wealthy Athenian soldier and playboy, the notorious Alcibiades. It was Alcibiades who so admired the homely, snub-nosed Socrates that he tried to seduce him — and failed, according to Plato, at the end of his "Symposium" on Love. It was Alcibiades who, to celebrate his election as the general to lead the Athenians' disastrous invasion of Sicily, had led his friends on a drunken carouse about Athens and impiously knocked the phalluses off the busts of Hermes at its streetcorners. And it was Alcibiades who finally betrayed Athens to the Spartans by showing them how to cut the city's lifeline, the long walls to its seaport at Piraeus.
What might Socrates and Alcibiades be debating? Most likely, the nature of courage. Unlike Xenophon, who only dreams of becoming a soldier and a hero, Alcibiades already is one - or so he thinks. So Socrates turns to him, to inquire what real courage is. The irony is that Socrates already knows what it is, and Alcibiades does not. In Plato's "Alcibiades 1" dialogue, Alcibiades describes courage as a mental or emotional state, a gut feeling or passion so desirable in a man that he "would rather take poison than live as a coward." But Socrates proves that Alcibiades does not understand the true meaning of courage. Real courage is not just a feeling, but is linked to knowlege and wisdom, to one's sense of right and wrong, to knowing what is worth dying or risking one's life for. Socrates has already shown that he has it, not only by willing to die for his ideals (the final test of which is yet to come at his trial), but by showing his courage on the battlefield - a fact that Alcibiades knows full well. For, as Alcibiades himself testifies in Plato's "Symposium," when they were tentmates together at Potidaea, and Alcibiades had fallen in battle, Socrates had risked his own life to save him.
Between Zenophon and Alcibiades are the heads of two older and wiser men, intently listening to Socrates' argument. (Some see the red-robed man in front as Aeschines, the Athenian orator who bitterly argued against Demosthenes in favor of making peace with Philip II, and who went off with him in the embassy to Macedonia to help arrange it.) Raphael shows these two old men staring intently at Socrates' hands, which he is using to make his points. Is he counting them out as he argues? Counting out reasons for and against some momentous action, such as a war, or a way of life? Note the Y shape formed by the thumb and index finger of his left hand. Could this allude to the so-called "Y" of Pythagoras, the cross-roads where one must decide which path in life to take?
THE CHOICE OF POPE JULIUS II: THE BOOK OR THE SWORD?
In the Rome of Julius II, whom the people called "The Warrior Pope," this was no idle, academic debate. On becoming pope, he took the name Julius after Julius Caesar, not the forgettable Julius I. And he swore he preferred the smell of gunpowder to the smell of incense. One incident tells it all. In 1506, clad in shining steel armor and riding his great war horse, the 63-year-old pope led a motley army of knights, cardinals, priests, monks and foreign mercenaries to take back by force into the Papal States the rebellious cities of Perugia and Bologna. After parading into Bologna, to show the citizens who was boss, he commanded his rebellious sculptor Michelangelo to meet him there, and after pardoning him, told him as penance to create a monumental bronze statue of himself in papal robes and tiara, to be erected 32 feet above the main portal of the basilica of San Petrino. Three weeks later, when he went to look at Michelangelo's clay model and saw its right hand raised high in the air, he asked: "Am I giving a blessing, or a curse?" "You are warning the people to be careful, to behave. But what would you like in your left hand? A book?" "Put a sword there!" roared the pope. "I know nothing of books!."
Because the Italian word "biblia" can also mean "bible," some translators (doubtless Protestant or antiPapist) translate it as such. The Bible itself is so-called because it is not one book but many. A small library, in fact. In his days as a cardinal, Julius had not only read books, he had even written a few himself, including one on the dispute over the Immaculate Conception - the claim that the Virgin Mary, alone among mortals, was born without original sin. But as pope he now seemed to be saying the time for theology was past, and it was time now for action. So there is a certain irony in Julius hiring Raphael to redecorate the Stanzas or "rooms" in the Vatican for his personal library. While today they are full of tourists, they were then filled with books: books on church law and theology on one side, below frescoes like the "Dispute over the Blessed Sacrament"; and books of philosophy beneath "The School of Athens." Recall that "Renaissance" meant the rebirth of classical wisdom and knowledge by recovering the books of the ancients, most of which were lost when a Christian mob burned the great Library of Alexandria. That is why so many of the figures in the School of Athens are seen carrying books, holding books, studying books, writing books, and copying books. And none more than these figures:
THE PYTHAGORAS GROUP
Pythagoras himself, a Greek mathematician and mystic, was as great an influence on Plato as Socrates. And it is Pythagoras who is the center of rapt attention by those huddled about him in this intense little group on the lower left side.
The middle-aged, dark-bearded scholar in yellow and red who stands facing Pythagoras and may point to an opposing theory of his own has been variously identified as Parmenides, Xenocrates, and Aristoxenos.
Behind and to his left stands an angelic, androgenous figure robed in white who stares directly at us. Does he, or she, belong to the Pythagoras group, or not?
The dark-skinned scholar in the white turban and green robe who leans over Pythagoras is the Arabic philosopher Averroes. It is thanks to him that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were transmitted to the west. Behind Averroes is a curly-haired boy who looks out, maybe a bit apprehensively, at us — or at whoever might be entering the stanza from that side. He is known only from the model: He was the eleven-year-old son of Francesco Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este and was then being held in the Vatican as a hostage. Why? We shall come back to him.
 Behind this boy is a ruddy, round-faced man apparently wreathed in grape leaves and draining the last of a basin or fountain of wine being held by another boy, while behind him one of the "symposiasts" seems to be summoning a scantily-clad waiter who runs out to serve more wine. So the red-faced figure is said to be the hedonistic philosopher Epicurus, garbed as the wine-god Dionysos/Bacchus. But though Epicurus was certainly an Epicurean, he was probably not an epicure, and certainly not the vulgar sort of hedonist who believes one should eat, drink and be merry today and to heck with tomorrow. A sot he was not. On the contrary, Epicurus taught that one should seek happiness by maximizing pleasure, yes, but even more one should avoid pain and unhappy consequences. In some ways he was more of a stoic than a hedonist. Taught by students of Plato, he was in the tradition of the wise men of ancient Greece who preached "moderation in all things." True, moderation was not the rule at the night-long parties thrown by Pope Julius. But on a closer look the wreath on "Epicurus" seems made, not of grape leaves, but of oak leaves like those on Julius' family coat-of-arms. Instead of drinking, he is reading, or writing in, a book. And the lad racing out is bringing, not more wine, but more books. Was Raphael told to "tone down" the partying in his school, and "tone up" the learning?
On the same slate, right above this magic number, Raphael has drawn a beautiful diagram of Pythagoras' theory of the harmonic ratios. These are the ratios that determine not only those heard harmonies such as Apollo's lyre produces, but also the inaudible harmonies of the celestial spheres. Raphael's diagram shows how a single string can be divided into three different lengths to tune or produce the four most harmonious strings of the seven-stringed lyre to the musical intervals of the octave, the fifth and the fourth (labelled by Raphael in Greek: diatessaron, diapente, and diapason). Above these are the numbers 8 and 9, and above them, the Greek word "epogdoon" ("up an eighth"), a number that was revered as mystical and beautiful by the Pythagoreans because it was one-eighth greater than the number before it; thus 9 is the "epogdoon" of 8 because it is 8 plus 1/8th of 8. Mystified? So are we!
Here is how Pythagoras supposedly discovered the mathematical ratios underlying these harmonic intervals, and what that discovery meant for him, for Plato, and for Raphael and the Renaissance:
Upon hearing the musical intervals produced by a series of hammers in a blacksmith shop, Pythagoras rushed home to experiment with lyre strings and flute pipes. What he learned is that the most harmonious musical intervals or chords such as the octave, fifth, and fourth correspond to strict mathematical ratios — those created by dividing or stopping the string or pipe at its mid-point, at two-thirds of its length, or at three-fourths of its length. The ratio between the half-stopped string or pipe and the unstopped full-length string or pipe is 1:2, and the musical interval between the two tones those produce is an octave. The ratio between a string or pipe stopped at two-thirds of its length and the whole string or pipe is 2:3, and the interval between the tones these produce is a musical "fifth." The ratio between a string or pipe stopped at three-fourths of its length and the unstopped whole length is 3:4, and the interval between the tones these produce is a musical "fourth."
So the mathematical ratios that underlie the physical basis (hammers, lyre-strings, flute-pipes) of the sounds that strike our ear as in beautiful harmony are these: for the octave l:2, for the fifth 2:3, for the fourth 3:4.
But — wonder of wonders — these numbers correspond to the first three "triangular" numbers, to the first four rows or "triangles" of the Pythagorean tetraktys. Is something mystical as well as musical and mathematical going on here? Pythagoras and his followers thought so.
Inspired by this discovery, the Pythagoreans now made a tremendous intellectual leap: they extrapolated from the physical and mathematical ratios underlying musical harmony to similar ratios or harmonic patterns underlying the cosmos, the entire universe. Just as different vibrating strings in a lyre create a musical harmony, they reasoned, so the sun, moon and planets travelling along in their circular orbits vibrate in a celestial harmony. The lowest note is produced by the innermost orbital motion of the moon; and the highest by the outermost circle of the fixed stars. For Pythagoras, the whole universe was thus like an enormous lyre — a lyre with circular strings or cords, producing the chords of a celestial concert.
Later, with Plato and the Renaissance, these planetary orbits were transformed from circles into hollow spheres, and then into hollow crystalline spheres. Hence the Harmony or Music of the Spheres.
Why can't we hear the music of the spheres? Because our souls are too gross and impure. Like a rock fan whose eardrums are too damaged to hear Mozart, the ports of our spiritual ears are so contaminated and plugged up with the noise and clamor of sensations and passions that we simply cannot hear the pure music of the cosmos. Here is how Shakespeare puts it:
... look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
— The Merchant of Venice, Act V, scene i.
Some said, nevertheless, that a select few, whose souls were pure enough, could hear the music of the spheres even here below. Others said No, only Pythagoras himself could hear the music of the universe.
Plato, by the way, held that there is no actual music of the spheres. Otherwise, he bought most of the Pythagorean system of a world created out of numbers, the five regular ("Platonic") solids, and the Pythagorean concept of the cosmos as a set of concentric circles or hollow spheres nestled one inside the other. This is the cosmic geometry that was explained in Plato's TIMAEUS, and which inspires the geometric design of Raphael's painting.
THE EUCLID GROUP
 In the right foreground are concentrated two groups. An absorbed group of students huddles around the stooped figure of Euclid (or maybe Archimedes), who is demonstrating some geometric proposition with a pair of compasses upon a slate. Behind him, in yellow robes, stands the Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy, holding his globe of the earth. Behind him is the Persian astronomer and philosopher Zoroaster, holding a sphere of the fixed stars. The model for Zoroaster is said to be the humanist scholar Pietro Bembo — a prime source of Raphael’s ideas.
But a greater influence on Raphael was his friend and mentor, the architect Bramante, portrayed here as Euclid. It was from the older, more experienced Bramante that Raphael got most of the secret geometry and architectural composition of his painting, as well as many of the philosophical ideas in it. Though the vaults overarching the figures could have been studied by Raphael during visits to the Roman ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, these and the half-hidden central dome beyond were also part of Bramante’s design for the new St.Peters, already under construction.
 Just to the right of Zoroaster is Raphael himself, cast as the Greek painter Apelles, famous as Greece's greatest painter. He was said to be such a master illusionist that birds flew down to peck at the grapes he had painted on a wall - just the sort of trick that Plato scorned in art. Beside Raphael is his friend Sodoma, whose fresco he erased to create his Vatican paintings; he is cast here as Protogenes, Apelles' greatest rival. Though Raphael is often - falsely - said to be the only figure in the School of Athens who gazes directly back at the viewer, might he also be glancing at Sodoma to see his reaction?
Somebody important seems to be the impressive white-haired figure in a red robe standing over behind Zoroaster's star-studded sphere. Some think he's Plotinus, the mystical Hellenistic philosopher whose writings seem to have greatly influenced Marsilio Ficino and the founders of the neo-Platonic academy in Florence in Raphael's day.
THE LONERS: DIOGENES THE CYNIC, AND MICHELANGELO AS HERACLEITUS
 Sprawled in solitude on the steps before Aristotle may be the Cynic philosopher Diogenes, who lived like an unwashed hippie in his rented barrel on the streets of Athens and when visited by Alexander the Great and offered anything he wanted, replied: "Please move out of the sunlight in front of my barrel!" To his right in this detail are the legs of a white-robed fellow. If you look at the full painting you'll see this is a young man pointing to Diogenes with one hand while waving at those above to pay attention to him, as if it is not enough to know Plato and Aristotle to live rightly? Beside him is a cup (an ascetic, he supposedly cast aside his cup and bowl) and in his hand is a sheet or sheaf of paper which he seems to be reading or studying. But who wrote it, and what does it say?
There is an interesting story or two behind this solitary "Heraclitus" figure. In the first place, he is the sole figure in the whole "School" who is totally absent from Raphael's preliminary working drawing or "cartoon" of the painting. Technical examination of the fresco confirms that Heraclitus was painted in a year later, in 1511, as an afterthought, on an area of fresh plaster put on after the adjacent figures were completed. This block-like figure plugged up a visual hole, a tunnel of white light and marble that streamed out in front of Plato and Aristotle.
 To see how huge and ugly this void was, take a look at Raphael's "cartoon" for the fresco. The biggest and best preserved of any Renaissance cartoon, it has been since 1625 in the Ambrosia Library in Milan. The cartoon is huge: 8 1/2 x 24 1/2 feet - almost as big as the figured area of the fresco, which with its architectural backgroud is 15 x 25 feet. It is called a "cartoon" because it is made, like a "carton," of cardboard. To transfer the figures from Raphael's cartoon to the wall, along the outlines and main lines of the figures his assistants punched holes through the cardboard into a paper lining behind it; they then pinned the lining to the freshly plastered wall, and cut along the holes with a steel point to scratch those lines into the wall.
There is an even more interesting explanation for Raphael's change. Heraclitus looks a lot like Michelangelo, who was at this time slaving away next door on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It is said that despite Michelangelo's efforts to keep his work in total secrecy, Raphael managed to sneak into the Chapel to see what his anti-social older rival was up to. And sure enough, not only does the Heraclitus figure look like Michelangelo; in its block-like sculptural solidity, it looks like it was painted by Michelangelo.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And Raphael's inclusion of Michelangelo along with himself and his friends among the immortals is also a great tribute to him. For it was part of the Renaissance's neoPlatonic mystique that immortality in this world could be acquired by becoming the reincarnation, however brief, of some immortal deity or hero of antiquity. The doctrine of reincarnation itself came to them from Pythagoras via Plato; and it was believed in at the revival of Plato's Academy in Florence, whose founder was rumored to be a reincarnation of Plato.
PROBLEMS WITH HYPATIA, High Priestess of the Pagans?
What caused that "hole" in the first place? When Raphael showed his initial sketches to the church fathers, one of them, a bishop, asked accusingly: "Who is this woman in the middle?" Replied Raphael: “Hypatia of Alexandria, the most famous student in the School of Athens. She was a professor of philosophy, mathematics and astronomy at the University of Alexandria and surely one of the greatest thinkers ever!” “Remove her!" ordered the Bishop. "Knowledge of her runs counter to the belief of the faithful. Otherwise, the work is acceptable.”
 Raphael. La Fornarina. c.1518-1519. Oil on panel. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome, Italy
But what really upset the priests was the presence of this notorious heretic, this pagan woman "Hypatia" in the School of Athens, right at the center of it all - and here in the Pope's chambers, in the most sacred place in Christendom - that was not just embarassing; it was scandalous!
Eleven centuries earlier, in 415 AD, the Christian rulers of Alexandria, Egypt, had made Cyril, a fervent Christian, the city's Patriarch, or Archbishop. Cyril set to work at once to get rid of the non-Christian, "pagan" scholars of the city. Prominent among them was Hypatia, the gifted daughter of Theon, the last great mathematician at the famous Library of the Museum of Alexandria. She had many suitors, but turned them all down. As brilliant as she was beautiful, Hypatia was said to be a sort of Athena incarnate. Though she had studied at Plato's Academy in Athens, she became a defender of the more mystical neo-Platonism of Plotinus. As a mathematician, she edited with her father a book on conic sections. And as an astronomer and physicist, she is said to have invented - or co-invented with him - the astrolabe and the hydrometer.
While riding in her chariot on her way to work at the Library one day, she encountered a fanatical Christian mob, led by Cyril's lector , who were also headed for the Library. To burn it. What happened next was succinctly put by the astronomer Carl Sagan in his popular book "Cosmos": "They dragged her from her chariot, tore off her clothes, and, armed with abalone shells, flayed her flesh from her bones, her remains were burned, her works obliterated, her name forgotten. Cyril was made a saint."
  To placate those priests (who were suggesting he, too, was a heretic), Raphael could have simply cut Hypatia out of his "cartoon," his final working drawing for the painting. But look again at that cartoon. You can see he did remove her from the steps in the center, leaving that huge hole beside Diogenes. But then he slyly put her back in. She now stands, still by herself, over there on the left, between the Socrates and Pythagoras groups. Painted in radiant white, she looks, more directly than Raphael himself, boldly and defiantly at us.
To disguise her sex and identity, Raphael reportedly lightened her dark Egyptian skin to a very pale white and altered her face to resemble that of Pope Julius' "beloved" nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere.
In 1504, at age 14, Francesco's portrait had been painted by Raphael. The portrait survives, in Florence, in the Uffizi Palace, with the title "Young Man with an Apple." Compared with the face of "Hypatia," here we see the same beauty, hair and eyes, perhaps; but also a certain boldness, hardness, even cruelty, in the eyes, and in those tight, thin lips?
In 1507, in a painted miniature celebrating his triumphal entry into Rome after his military victory over the Bolognese, the Pope had his 17-year-old nephew and constant companion depicted as a youth in golden armor. To see the devoted pair in their triumphal car, parading their prisoners in chains, hop over to the Vatican by clicking HERE.
In 1508, thanks to Julius' power, Francesco inherited from his other uncle the Dukedom of Urbino. In 1509, at age 19, he was appointed by Julius the Prefect of Rome and Capitano Generale (Commander-in-Chief) of the Papal States.
FEDERIGO GONZAGA, THE GOLDEN BOY OF THE VATICAN
But now, about to enter the picture, both in Julius' affections, and in Raphael's fresco, comes Federigo Gonzaga, the fair-haired boy that Raphael, at Julius' "suggestion," inserted into the painting behind Averroes and beneath Socrates confronting Alcibiades, his would-be lover in gold-plated armor.
 Federigo Gonzaga at age 10 in 1510, by Francesco Francia. Tempera on wood. Metropolitan Museum of Art
It was Francesco Maria who helped arrange the hostage exchange. Because he had once been married to one of Francesco Gonzaga's daughters, he was both the older soldier's son-in-law and a brother-in-law to little Federigo. So when Venice sent five envoys to kneel at the Pope's feet, and Julius absolved them, Francesco Maria decided to plead for his father-in-law's freedom. But Julius went into one of his rages, cursing and driving him out. Later, however, when his nephew's horse won a carnival race, he so enjoyed it he roared with laughter; and at last he agreed to ask the Venetians to free Francesco Gonzago, saying he needed him. And when Venice refused to let him go without some pledge in return, Julius agreed to take little Federigo home as a hostage.
In July of 1510, Francesco Gonzaga was finally set free, and went to Bologna to meet the Pope, who appointed him Gonfalionere of the Church in place of Alfonso d'Este, the brother of his wife Isabella d'Este and hence his brother-in-law. Isabella had finally consented to let Federigo go to Rome to take his father's place as a hostage for the Venetians, and now she sent him there with some trusted servants to watch over him. On the way they stopped in Bologna so the boy could visit his father, and while there he had this portrait painted, to send back to his mother. While charming, it looks a bit sappy and stiff. Is the boy's expression dreamy? wistful? sad? or bored? And why does his hand so feebly hold and fail to grasp that golden sword? Baloney or not, Julius liked it so much he took it with him to Rome, where he kept it, like a painted hostage, for years before sending it to Isabella.
In Rome, the real hostage lived a princely life that other boys could only dream about. Julius installed Federigo and his servants in the Belvedere Palace, in a palatial suite below his own apartments, and overlooking the famous Belvedere gardens, where he could play among its statues, including the Apollo Belvedere and the recently excavated Laocoon group. The boy so much liked that statue, with its huge snakes encircling and biting the screaming old man and his two sons, he decided to send it to his mother at Mantua. A famous goldsmith offered to make him instead two small copies in gold relief - one to send to his mother, the other to pin on his hat. But Isabella wrote back, Sorry, she couldn't afford them.
Decked out in white and gold brocade, a purple velvet cap, and a sword, Federigo was allowed to ride on horseback in carnival parades; accompany the Pope to papal conclaves; and visit one of the Pope's galleys on the Tiber. When the galley slaves saw him they cheered; but when he saw them, chained to their seats by one leg and blackened from constant exposure to sun, wind and water, he pitied them. He visited the Papal Treasury in the Castel Sant' Angelo, and was shown its chests of gold and silver coins, golden crosses, gold and silver plates and cups; its jewelled mitres, its twelve gold images of the Apostles; and its papal tiara valued at 80,000 ducats. When one official tried to set the tiara on his head, Federigo picked up a spear and declared: "No! I will not be Pope, but Captain of the Church!" Amazed, they hailed him as "the new Achilles." So they all adored him, and he became a favorite of the court. But would Federigo realize his dream and replace his brother-in-law? Would Fortune smile on him as well?
A FATAL FEUD AND ENCOUNTER
 The wheel of Fortune turned until, by 1511, at 21, Francesco Maria's star began to fall. Sent back to Bologna to defend the city against the return of its ruler, Giovanni Bentivoglio, allied now with a French army that had switched sides and kept the city under siege, Francesco procrastinated until it was too late. To add to his problems, he also had to deal with the self-serving papal legate, Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, whom Julius had foolishly made governor of Bologna. Many found it hard to meet his cold, cruel, pitiless, steely-eyed gaze - brilliantly captured by Raphael in this portrait of 1510-11. The humanist scholar Pietro Bembo, a cardinal himself, and a friend and tutor to both Raphael and Federigo, said of Alidosi that he was a man "to whom faith meant nothing, religion nothing, trust nothing, shame nothing, and nothing in him was holy." Heads shook, and tongues wagged, wondering how Julius could be so fond of him. Besotted, in fact. Alidosi was thus more than a rival to the pope's "beloved" nephew. He was the pope's "favorite." And Francesco hated him with a passion.
On December 30, 1511, aided by a French attack, Bentivoglio came back into Bologna. Fearing for their lives, both Francesco and Alidosi fled the city. To celebrate, the people tore down the castle Julius had built for himself, and toppled from its pedestal Michelangelo's colossal statue of him, smashing it to pieces. The bronze was given to Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara, to pay him for providing them artillery. Keeping its fifty-pound head in his wardrobe, Alfonso had the rest melted down and recast as a bronze cannon, which he mockingly christened "La Giulia" ("Miss Julia") - an insult to Julius' manhood (and gayness) that Alfonso would repent.
After losing Bologna, and nearby Mirandola, Julius retreated to Ravenna, where he raged at the treachery, not of Alidosi, but of the citizens, and then of his nephew. "If I get my hands on him, I'll have him drawn and quartered!" he roared. He then sent for Francesco to come for a little talk.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Alidosi, fearing for his life, had locked himself up in a castle. But when his friends in the Curia told him the Pope's fury was aimed not at him but at Francesco, he mounted his mule and went to Ravenna. Hearing he was coming, Julius cut off his talk with Francesco, who stormed out and took to his horse. On the street he met Alidosi riding his mule. The cardinal, with a mocking smile, doffed his cap in greeting, Furious, Francesco leaped from his horse and grabbed the bridle of Alidosi's mule, as Alidosi, fearing for his life, jumped off. Francesco drew his sword and struck him on the head, yelling, "Take that, traitor! You deserve it!" The cardinal's escort of papal guards, whom Julius had sent to protect him, and who had stopped to salute the Duke, now cried out. But Francesco ordered them to stop, as if he were carrying out the Pope's orders, and kept slashing away at Alidosi, who finally fell to the street, where he was finished off by Francesco's men. Francesco then rode off to his dukedom of Urbino.
JULIUS' BEARD. HIS FINAL TRIUMPH. AND DEATH
After his disastrous defeat at Bologna, in defiance of canon law Julius began to grow a beard, vowing not to shave it off until he had driven the French out of Italy. For nearly a year it grew, from June 17, 1511, when he entered Bologna and dismissed his barber, until April of 1512, when he called for his barber to shave it off. Meanwhile, Raphael and his assistants were busy creating four great frescoes containing portraits of the bearded pope.
 Raphael, Julius II as Pope Innocent III in the Dispute over the Blessed Sacrament, 1511-12. Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican, Rome. Image from ChistusRex.
Note that here Julius' beard, though several inches long, is still brown and streaked with gray, as it must have looked on June 26, 1511, when Julius returned to Rome after his defeat by the French at Bologna. In the next two frescoes it has turned white.
If Julius had doubts about the miracle of Transubstantiation, he was not the only one. In 1264, a Bohemian priest who had long been troubled by such doubts went on a pilgrimage to Rome, stopping in the town of Bolsena to say mass. While consecrating the chalice (some say the host), he saw red drops appear and trickle down onto the white linen cloth on which the bread and wine were set. He tried to wipe them up, but found the wine stain acted more like a blood stain, whose drops took the circular shape of a consecrated host. (Ohers said it was a cross; so Raphael combined the two shapes.) Pope Urban IV, then in nearby Orvieto, had the stained linen sent there as a precious relic, and to celebrate the miracle, created the feast of Corpus Christi. On September 7, 1506, Julius had stopped by Orvieto cathedral to see this sacred relic, hoping perhaps to thereby fortify his own faith. Now, in 1511, his faith wavering in God's power to prevent the French from dismembering the Papal States, he was ready to pray for another miracle. And he told Raphael to create this fresco in the stanza of Heliodoros, portraying himself as a sort of bearded Urban in prayer, but directly across from the troubled priest whose faith had been restored by a miracle in The Mass at Bolsena.
The story of Heliodorus' Expulsion from the Temple is told in 2 Maccabees (3:22-34), which you can easily find in a Catholic Bible, but only as an apocryphal book in the Protestant Bible, and, surprisingly, not at all in a Jewish Bible. On orders from the King of Syria, Heliodorus and his bodyguards have come to seize the gold and silver treasure of the Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem, But as soon as they enter they are panic-stricken to see three angels coming at them. The first, in gold armor, charges his horse at Heliodorus, battering him with its hooves, while the other two flog him with whips. Only by the high priest Onias' appeal to God's mercy (shown at the altar in the center) is his life spared. Watching this scene from the left, borne aloft on his portable throne, is Julius - erect, imperious, and utterly riveted by it. (The two bearers in front are Raphael's friend and engraver, Marcantonio Raimondi, and Raphael himself.) Why was this story so important to Julius? He must have felt his own Church was being plundered by the King of France. And he was hoping for a miracle to save it.
 Raphael, Portrait of Pope Julius II, 1511-12, Oil on wood, National Gallery, London
 The Plotinus figure in the School of Athens. A portrait of Julius II?
It may seem odd that Raphael would portray Julius as such a loner, as such an isolated figure as this Plotinus. But with power often comes isolation and loneliness. And Julius' only close friend now seems to have been young Federigo. As one of the boy's servants wrote to his mother: "The boy is his constant companion, both at his meals in the Vatican and in his daily walks and rides. When any of the cardinals come to dinner, they sit at other tables in the same hall, and Federigo alone always eats at the Pope's little table, while the cardinals sit at tables apart from them. In the evenings they play backgammon together..." Some of those cardinals could have been plotting against Julius, even planning to poison or depose him. Many had already deserted him, setting up a rival Papal Court in Pisa.
In August of 1511, when Julius became desperately ill, Federigo had proved to be the only person he trusted. Though near death with fever, he refused food or medicine from his doctors, and even his close relatives. Pandemonium reigned, not only in the Vatican, but throughout Rome. Wrote the Venetian ambasssador: "His Holiness is passing away. Cardinal Medici tells me he cannot live through the night. The city is in turmoil. Everyone is taking up arms." Within the Vatican all was confusion: the servants had fled, the rooms were already stripped of their furniture and valuables. Hearing his uncle was dying and had already made out his will, Francesco Maria raced to Rome. There Julius absolved him of the murder of Alidosi. But when Francesco tried to persuade him to take food or medicine, Julius only railed at him: "Throw those accursed medicines out the window!" The only one he would listen to was Federigo. As the boy's servant Stazio wrote his mother Isabella: "Everyone was in despair, and His Holiness refused to take anything, but Signor Federigo took a cup of broth with two yokes of eggs beaten up in it, and carried it himself to the bed of His Holiness, begging him to drink it for his sake and that of our Lady of Loreto.... And it is said in Rome that Pope Julius will live, thanks to Signor Federigo."
 Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, after Titian, attributed to Bastianino (Sebastiano Filippi). c 1525. He relaxes by a mouth of a cannon (perhaps "La Giulia")? which he set up on the ramparts of his castle in Ferrara
On Easter Sunday the opposing armies clashed on the plains near Ravenna. The fighting was fierce, but Alfonso d'Este's superior artillery [perhaps including La Giulia?] helped Julius' enemies defeat the League, and they took as prisoners the pope's legate and two of his generals, along with their banners and guns. Yet their French general, Gaston de Foix, had fallen in battle, and no one could replace him. Their army became demoralized, and their leaders began to squabble. Disgusted, Alfonso d'Este took his cannons and went home to Ferrara. Francesco Maria, who had refused to leave his Duchy of Urbino and had nearly joined the French, now changed his mind and came with fresh forces to help his uncle. Julius gave him back his baton of command, and sent him a strong Swiss force, which attacked Milan. On May 3, 1512, just three weeks after his defeat at Bologna, Julius now felt strong enough to summon his own Vatican Council and declare null and void the decrees of his rebellious cardinals at their opposing Council of Pisa. In June, the Milanese rose up in arms against the French, who withdrew beyond the Alps. The Bentivogli again fled Bologna, and the city once again opened its gates to a papal legate. As for that too-clever engineer Alfonso: repentent at last, he came from Ferrara to Rome to sue for peace. Julius had gotten his miracle.
In late November, 1512, Julius cemented his victory with an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, celebrating it with a mass at the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. As he paraded through the streets, Federigo rode by his side, resplendent in a suit of gold and peacock satin, topped with a white-plumed velvet cap and a diamond clasp.
On February 18,1513, all Italy celebrated Julius' defeat of their enemies with a great carnival and pageant, culminating in a Triumph and Masquerade - a spectacular parade through the streets of Rome in which each city had a float filled with masked figures costumed as biblical or mythical heroes: Moses brandishing his serpent to deliver his people in the wilderness; Phaeton falling from Apollo's chariot of the sun; Apollo in his temple at Delphi, triumphant over his foes. On and on it went.
But where was Julius? Why was he not leading his own Triumph?
He was flat on his back in the Vatican, racked with fever and dying. Again. This time neither his famous Jewish doctor's science nor Federigo's devotion could save him. As he burned with fever, the cardinals sent Swiss guards to the gates. Some of the captains begged Federigo to take command of the papal troops. Once again, fearing a riot, people began grabbing their things. Even Federigo wondered if he should flee. But he chose to stay and follow his uncle Cardinal Gonzaga's directions. Order was kept, and he calmly stayed in his rooms.
From all accounts, in death Julius was able to live up to the humanist ideal of dying the Good Death. For once he did not go into a rage, but calmly, stoically, accepted his fate. On his last night, on February 20, he called in his cardinals to bid them farewell and give them a final blessing. He asked them to pray for his soul, saying that he had been a great sinner, and had not governed the Church well. He then gave directions for the coming Conclave to elect his successor, and begged them to observe his laws against simony and keep their hands pure. Weeping, they kissed his hand and received his last blessing. Then they left and he died.
In Italy, only in Ferrara was the news of Julius' death hailed with satisfaction, for Alfonso d'Este was now free of his deadliest enemy. In Mantua his sister Isabella also felt relief, for now her hostage son Federigo could be freed and come home. As soon as the Conclave of cardinals met to select a new pope, they told him he was free, and on August 3 he said goodbye to them. "The door was not quite closed," wrote his servant Grossino to Isabella, "so I could see through the opening how His Highness bowed to the ground and tried to kiss their hands, but they all embraced and kissed him."
We do not know if Federigo took with him the saccharine portrait that Francia had painted of him in Bolonga and that Julius had kept for himself instead of sending it on to Isabella. Despairing of ever getting it, she had written the previous May to ask Raphael to paint a life-size bust of her boy in armor. Raphael put it off and put it off, until, on January 18, he finally arranged a first sitting where he did a quick charcoal sketch of Federugo in the doublet and hat his mother had sent. A month later, on February 15, when asked how the oil portrait was coming, Raphael assured Isabella's servant Grassio that he was "working at it" and was "most anxious" to finish it. But four days later, just after Julius died, he returned the boy's cape and doublet and asked Isabella to pardon him, for it was now "impossible to give his mind to the work." So Raphael, too, was thrown by the death of Julius into a limbo of confusion and uncertainty.
He would come to himself again only after the cardinals elected a new Pope, Leo X. Leo ordered Raphael to paint his own portrait in place of Julius' in the unfinished fresco of The Repulse of Attila by Leo the Great - with the odd result that Leo X now appeared there twice, as both the beardless pope and as one of his own attending cardinals. Though the miraculous Repulsion of Attila the Hun had occurred a thousand years earlier, Attila was meant to be a stand-in for Louis XII, and his repulse by Julius II. But was Julius wholly erased, or does he now reappear flying overhead, apotheosized as a heavily bearded St.Paul, wielding along with St. Peter an avenging sword? In any case, no pope dared wear a beard again until Clement VII wore one as a sign of mourning after the sack of Rome in 1527. After that, all the popes wore beards until Innocent XII died in 1700. Had Raphael's portraits of Julius as an ancient patriarch triggered a fashion trend?
JULIUS EXCLUDED FROM HEAVEN?
 Desiderius Erasmus in 1523. By Hans Holbein the Younger.
St. Peter: "Immortal God! It smells like a sewer round here! I won't open the door directly, but I'll peep through the bars of this window and find out what kind of monster it is." Peering out the window, he says to Julius:
"You've brought twenty thousand men with you, but not one of that whole mob even looks like a Christian to me. They seem to be the worst dregs of humanity, all stinking of brothels, booze, and gunpowder. ...And the more closely I look at you yourself, the less I can see any trace of an apostle...Your whole body is disfigured by the marks of monstrous and abominable appetites [the pope had contracted and apparently died of syphilis - that dark and secret gift Columbus and his crew had brought back to the Old World from the New in 1493], ... you're all belches and ... stink of boozing and hangovers and look as if you've just thrown up. Your whole body is in such a state I'd guess it's been wasted, withered, and rotted less by old age and illness than by drink."
Erasmus' satire goes on an on, as St. Peter continues to catalog the pope's sins, and refuses to unlock the gate. Erasmus' attack is relentless, turning even virtues into vices. The pope's resoluteness appears as cowardice: When St. Peter asks Julius why he grew his beard, Julius replies, "When the French looked like winners, I grew a long white beard as a disguise." Not even Julius' guardian angel has anything nice to say about him. So he's thrown out, and cast into Hell. North of the Alps, Protestant Reformers loved this satire on the sins of the papacy, making it a best-seller with multiple printings. To protect himself, Erasmus hadn't signed his name to the thing. But everyone knew who had written it. His friend Martin Luther was especially fond of it, and lavished fulsome praises on it. But then Luther was not known for moderation.
MICHELANGELO'S MOSES: A FINAL TRIBUTE TO JULIUS?
Can anyone defend poor Julius against such a barrage? If there is no competing with Erasmus' pen - as an overly modest Holbein said when his portraits of Erasmus were praised - then maybe a block of marble will do: Michelangelo's Moses.
An impossible project to begin with, the Tomb of Julius II, a colossal mausoleum covered with 40 statues carved from a mountain of marble, now looked doomed by his death to the graveyard of grandiose dreams. But no. A month later Pope Leo X sent his agents to talk Michelangelo into completing the project, but on a less grandiose scale, and as an inducement, with a contract for 10,500 ducats.
Still smarting from the insult to his art and the waste of his time and labor by the mob's destruction of his colossal bronze statue of Julius in the fall of Bologna, Michelangelo seized this chance to recreate it, or at least reincarnate its spirit in marble. In the tomb's original scheme, a heroic ten-foot-tall statue of Julius was to sit or stand in a central upper niche, In his now more modest design (the drawing is in the Uffizi) Julius sleeps in his papal robes and tiara as if lodged between Heaven and Hell, propped up by a pair of angels who appeal to the Madonna and Child overhead, while his dead body lies in the crypt below. In a pair of niches beside the slumbering pope sit a female prophet or sybyll on his right, and Moses on his left. But this design was still too costly and ambitious, In a later sketch (in London?) the towering top is gone, leaving the effigy of the dead Julius, still with papal robes and tiara but unsupported now by angels, slumped down atop his funeral urn. That design was never carved either; and in 1516 Michelangelo quit working on the tomb entirely. Nearly thirty years later the pieces were reassembled in Julius' favorite church, San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains). If you visit his tomb there you will see how the bearded pope, as carved by a later, lesser sculptor, ended up: he reclines on his side atop his sarcophagus like a dead Etruscan in Hades.
The Moses statue, the only major tomb figure that Michelangelo had finished, was moved from its niche next to Julius and placed down in front, before the bronze door to the pope's mortal remains. There one confronts a towering figure of authority and power, of one given to command, to laying down the law. But it's not just Moses, furious with the Jews when he comes down from Mt. Sinai with the Tables of the Law and finds them worshipping a golden calf. It's the sculptor himself, of course, idealized and of heroic size. It's also Julius, furious with his enemies, his faithless relatives and rebellious cardinals. A titanic figure, it pulses with "terribilita" - a term applied to both men by those who knew them. Whoever confronts it feels the tremendous force of this figure, the pent-up energy and tension in its muscles and throbbing veins, the whole body tensed like a coiled spring about to burst into action. But not with a fist or a weapon. In his hand Michelangelo puts, not a sword, but a book.
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