“Nature created him as a gift to the world,” Giorgio Vasari wrote of Raphael in the 16th-century compendium. The life of artists.. Roughly 500 years later, the sentiment still holds true. Born in 1483 in Urbino, Italy, a small center of art and culture of the 15th and 16th centuries, Raphael embodies the ideal of the Renaissance man: at 37, he established himself as a painter to rival Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, running a thriving studio and branching out into architecture and design. However, it is the humanism of his art, reflecting his own empathetic personality, that continues to resonate across time and space.
Sublime poetrywhich opens this weekend at the Metropolitan Museum, is the first comprehensive survey of Raphael in the United States, spanning his childhood learnings through his fame and achievements in his later years. If this seems surprising, consider the logistics involved in securing more than 170 works by the Renaissance master from more than 60 global collections, ranging from celebrated masterpieces such as “The Virgin and Child with the Child St. John the Baptist in a Landscape (The Virgin Alba)” (1509-11) to the fragile drawings that were the cornerstone of his practice, such as the Ashmolean Museum’s beguiling “Portrait of a Young Boy (Presumed to be a Self-Portrait).” (c. 1500) and the Louvre’s impressive “Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Three Quarters” (c. 1507).
Fortunately for audiences, curator Carmen C. Bambach has plenty of experience handling those logistics: her 2018 exhibition at The Met, Michelangelo: divine draftsman and designerIt was also a once-in-a-lifetime affair. However, unlike Michelangelo, Raphael’s life was not meticulously documented and, as a result, his name occupies a slightly lesser place in the popular imagination today. It’s a shame because Raphael’s influence is indelible in the history of art. He innovated the styles of his predecessor as quickly as he absorbed them, bringing warmth and luminosity to didactic devotional images and imbuing his drawings with the intimate immediacy of a diary entry.
Bambach took time to speak with Hyperallergic by email about the curation and staging of this historic exhibition, Raphael’s life, and which of his works of art he would most like to live with.
Hyperallergic: The exhibition is called Rafael: sublime poetry. Can you explain what you mean by “poetry” in the context of his art?
Carmen C. Bambach: Raphael’s is the story of an artist who was the son of a poet-painter, Giovanni Santi, and a close friend and portraitist of many poets and literary figures (Baldassare Castiglione, Pietro Bembo, Antonio Tebaldeo, etc.), as well as someone who attempted to compose sonnets himself. He lived and worked in a culture often accustomed to thinking of painting and poetry as intertwined sister arts. The elegiac beauty, elegance, and dramatic force of his images reminded educated viewers of the old saying, much invoked in the Renaissance, that “painting is silent poetry and poetry is blind painting.”
h: What was the process of putting together such a monumental exhibition and what job was the most difficult for her to get?
CCB: Almost eight years of work on the exhibition, research on the artist, new and original research, trips to museums to select and negotiate loans and formulate the exhibition’s argument. Asking for loans from Raphael is like asking from the first-born heir of the royal family, so all of Raphael’s works borrowed were a struggle.
h: In researching and putting together this exhibition, did you make any surprising discoveries about Raphael or specific works of art?
CCB: The function and place of Fragment of Raphael’s fresco from the Accademia di San Lucawhich I discovered comes from the ornamental heraldic design on the top of a fireplace painted for Pope Julius II in the Vatican Palace. Also the reconstruction of a portable altarpiece with articulated wings flanked by paintings of Saint Mary Magdalene (private collection) and Saint Catherine (Galleria Nazionalde delle Marche, Urbino), along with many other discoveries and new attributions.
h: What makes Raphael and his art distinctive in the Italian Renaissance canon?
CCB: Raphael was idolized almost continuously from about 1510 until the 1850s as a painter of supreme perfection, elegance and grace, and harmonious compositions, and as a dramatic narrative painter, he was thought to have no rivals. He was also the role model for the education of artists for three centuries. He was admired for his mastery of color, anatomy and geometry/perspective, and his versatility. During his short life he was also celebrated for his enormous creative ease. Thus, for three centuries, his fame often surpassed Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, although today historical convention might place him subordinate to both.
h: If you had to choose one “don’t miss” piece of art in this exhibition for visitors who aren’t very familiar with Raphael, what would it be?
CCB: He “virgin dawn“ (c. 1510, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) in relation to the preparatory sheet of drawings for the “Madonna Alba” (Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille); also the “Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione”(c. 1514-15, Louvre Museum, Paris).
h: Considering that Vasari saw Raphael as the technical pinnacle of Renaissance art, that he was so skilled at absorbing influences and even added architecture to his skill set, what do you think he would have achieved if he had lived longer?
CCB: I’m not sure he could have lived longer as he probably became ill from a huge amount of overwork. Health suffers when lighting the candle at both ends. If he had lived longer, he would have continued to innovate and produce amazing masterpieces, but as I say, his health probably would not have allowed him longevity.
h: What was Raphael like as a person, as far as scholars know?
CCB: His biographers have a lot to say about him. He was extremely sociable, open, a great communicator, a great teacher, extremely generous with those around him and his team of assistants.
h: Can you recommend any books or articles for people who want to learn more about Rafael?
CCB: Read my book, Rafael: sublime poetry [the exhibition catalog]and read my article, “Raphael’s Chimney Fresco for Pope Julius II Rediscovered,” at The Burlington Magazine (vol. 168, March 2026). Both publications include the latest original research.
h: If you could live with one work by Raphael, what would it be?
CCB: “Alba Madonna” by Raphael from the National Gallery of Art.
