FREE ESSAY ON POPE LEO X

POPE LEO X

1518 (150 Kb); Oil on wood, 154 x 119 cm (60 5/8 x 46 7/8 in); Uffizi, Florence 
It was for this achievement that Raphael has remained famous throughout the centuries.
Perhaps those who connect his name only with beautiful Madonnas and idealized figures
from the classical world may even be surprised to see Raphael's portrait of his great
patron Pope Leo X of the Medici family, in the company of two cardinals. There is nothing
idealized in the slightly puffed head of the near- sighted Pope, who has just examined an
old manuscript (somewhat similar in style and period to the Queen Mary's Psalter. The
velvets and damasks in their various rich tones add to the atmosphere of pomp and power,
but one can well imagine that these men are not at ease. These were troubled times, for
we remember that at the very period when this portrait was painted Luther had attacked
the Pope for the way he raised money for the new St Peter's. It so happens that it was
Raphael himself whom Leo X had put in charge of this building enterprise after Bramante
had died in 1514, and thus he had also become an architect, designing churches, villas
and palaces and studying the ruins of ancient Rome. Unlike his great rival Michelangelo,
though, he got on well with people and could keep a busy workshop going. Thanks to his
sociable qualities the scholars and dignitaries of the papal court made him their
companion. There was even talk of his being made a cardinal when he died on his
thirty-seventh birthday, almost as young as Mozart, having crammed into his brief life an
astonishing diversity of artistic achievements.