| Most people think learning history is boring, something | | | | the curious. Michelangelo left strict orders that no |
| required in school and then promptly forgotten, like | | | | visitors were to be allowed in the Sistine Chapel. |
| algebra. But, those people never had a history teacher | | | | Michelangelo, busy as a bee himself, consumed with a |
| who knew the little stories, and the little stories that | | | | daunting task, apparently had little interest in the work |
| make history interesting. For me, art history is not just | | | | of Raphael. |
| looking at pretty pictures with pretty colors; it is also a | | | | But Raphael had an interest in his. He paid a secret |
| large body of knowledge about the culture and | | | | visit aided by the pope to view the chapel ceiling in |
| customs of real people. I was fortunate to learn from | | | | progress. So profoundly did it affect him that he |
| a number of gifted art historians, no, really storytellers, | | | | returned to his work in the Stanza della Segnatura, the |
| as teachers. This is one of those little stories. | | | | private library of the pope, where he proceeded to |
| Italian Renaissance giants Michelangelo Buonarroti and | | | | pay tribute to Michelangelo by incorporating a seated |
| Raphael Sanzio had an unspoken competition. The | | | | figure of Michelangelo in the foreground of his |
| irascible Michelangelo, forced by Pope Julius II into | | | | masterpiece fresco, The School of Athens.That is only |
| painting the ceiling of his own private chapel, the Sistine | | | | the background for this little story. |
| as we know it, complained that he was not a painter, | | | | Perhaps not so well known then as his Madonnas or |
| but a sculptor. | | | | his magnificent Vatican frescoes, Raphael Sanzio also |
| This complaint fell on deaf ears as the pope had a | | | | executed a stunning fresco of The Prophet Isaiah in |
| war to fight and neither time nor patience for soothing | | | | Sant Agostino in Rome in 1511-12. The donor patron of |
| the artistic temperament. If the tale is true, the pope | | | | Isaiah was Head Chancellor of the Papal Court, |
| had even less patience for seeing that the artist was | | | | Johannes Goritz of Luxemburg. |
| paid. Food being a necessity, this was a bone of | | | | Ruffled by what he considered to be an exorbitant |
| contention between artist and patron. Raphael, on the | | | | price for the painting by Raphael, Goritz solicited |
| other hand, blessed with a much more affable | | | | Michelangelo for his opinion of its worth. Michelangelo |
| personality, never seemed to lack for funds, friends, or | | | | looked at the painting of his chief rival with its |
| food. | | | | powerfully rendered figure of the prophet. Rarely one |
| Both artists were occupied with the private artistic | | | | to acknowledge the genius in others, Michelangelo |
| visions of the pope in the Vatican simultaneously.The | | | | simply replied, 'For that knee alone, it is worth the price. |
| work of Raphael in the Vatican Stanze was open to | | | | |