A dialogue between Cardinal and the Countess

The picture of this lady from the Renaissance period was given as a gift to Francis I, King of France, by Cardinal Bibbiena, on behalf of the Medici Pope Leo X, who had earlier instructed Raphael to do several religious painting in order to give them to the monarchs with the intention of persuading the monarchs to join in the war with the Turks.

When you first enter into the last room of the exhibition, you are faced with the Portrait of Cardinal Bibbiena and this delicate lady. One of the first things you might notice is how the two are positioned within the portrait, it looks as though one the two are talking to each other.  Why did the Cardinal choose this portrait to give to the King?

Bibbiena was an educated man and was sent by the Pope to the French court for the same reason. He realized that he liked Francisco´s portraits of women (it is possible that he bought Leonardo´s work of the Mona Lisa) and for that reason he commissioned a portrait of a beautiful lady that would play favorably with the rest of the female portraits in the royal collection. He thought that this piece would perfectly to complete the king´s collection

Who was this beautiful woman, sung by the poets of her time and whose beauty continues to capture our attention?

Isabel de Requesens and Enriquez (1498-1534 other dates 1500-1539) who was the Countess of Palamos, wife of Don Ramon Cardona, viceroy of Naples and the two Sicilies and main supporter of the interests of Spain in Italy. She was the daughter of Bernat Galcerán Requesens, Earl of Palamos, Catalunya Spain. At eight year of age she was orphaned and heiress of numerous titles and considerable wealth. As was customary of the time, relatives rushed to marry her. The lucky winner was her cousin, Ramón Folch de Cardona III, who was the Anglesola and Baron of Bellpuig, He was thirty years older than the Countess and there was the suspicions that he was the bastard son of The Catholic King Ferdinand I. Despite this suspicious, Ramón came from a very important Catalonian family in the sixteenth-century and was the official Anglesola Cardona and Baron of Bellpuig. He was the founder in 1507 of the Convent of St. Bartholomew in Bellpuig, flamboyant gothic jewel of Renaissance in the county of Urgell.

Michale P. Fritz, a Swiss art historian, professor at the University of Freiburg, reveals the story of this painting in a book published in 1997 by the Department of the Louvre painting entitled "The Virreina of Naples".  He explains that there was a mistake, as in the Louvre had confused this lady with Joan of Aragon.

This masterpiece has captured the attention of many people over the centuries including one philosopher, poet and art critic during the nineteenth century, Theophile Gautier.  One day, walking throughout the Louvre he stood in front of the portrait and said, ¨I feel jealous of the husband of this beauty¨. Fritz tells us that the lucky husband had two beauties in his life, Isabel and a lover, Eleonora Brogna. Elenoroa was the bridesmaid of Isabel d'Este "whose beauty did not detracted from that of the viceroy "and who was curiously introduced by Isabel to Ramón 1512.

The city of Naples celebrated Isabel´s beauty and characters like the condottiere Francesco d'Avalos, husband of Vittoria Colonna, was smitten with her. There is an anecdote that during a dinner party for Vittoria, her husband put a beautiful pearl necklace on Isabel ( the next day Elizabeth was quick to return to Vittoria Colonna  ).Although he was in love with his wife, this story displays the ¨crush¨ that many men in Naples had towards Isabel

No doubt, by the testimony of his contemporaries, that Elizabeth was a great lady who wowed Naples and a great patron of the arts, contributing decisively to the success of their drive against the late Gothic Revival. In her personal life, we know she was widowed in 1522 at the age of twenty-two, and she continued to live in Naples until 1532. Isabel died in 1534 or 1539 and was buried in the church of Santa Anunziatta Neapolitan tomb which disappeared in a fire in 1757.

Vasari in his "Life of great artists," writes Raphael painted only the head, the natural and the rest of the picture was  his favorite disciple, Giulio Romano. The scene takes place in 1518, perhaps in the villa of Agostino Chigi in Rome or in the village of Poggio Reale in Naples.

 The picture is important because it opens a genre, called "Portrait of chamber” which will have many followers and will reach its full splendor with Titian and Velázquez. So many copies were made that are now scattered throughout different palaces in Europe. Alfonso d'Este Duke of Ferrara commissioned Raphael to make him a copy of a German princess wearing the same dress as Isabel in this portrait.

Raphael ability to express emotions and evoke feelings

The Prado museum in Madrid, Spain, dedicates an exhibition to Raphael Sanzio and his workshop. This exhibition is very particular, because is devoted to the last years of the master’s life, when he lived and worked in Rome, as one of the most influential artists of his time.

One cannot speak of Raphael Sanzio in a few words. This is only a simple invitation to know him following different paths characterized by spaces and emotions.

The exhibit includes more than seventy signed works, paintings and drawings, all of them created in his last seven years of life; from the start of the pontificate of Leo X (1513) up to the artist’s death in 1520.

Space in the exhibition will also be given to the work of Raphael’s principal pupils and followers, such as Giulio Romano (c. 1449-1546) and Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488-1528), who worked under the master’s close supervision on the late commissions he received. 

You will admire some masterworks like The St. Cecilia’s altar piece (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), and I highly encourage you to take a look to  another holy woman, the Santa Catalina from the  Spanish painter Fernando Yañez de la Almedina , painted a few years before that of Raphael and extremely beautiful and evocative (probably my favorite canvas  at the Prado)

Raphael´s works is not only the result of his Renaissance ideals or the multiple artistic influences he received during his stay in Florence and in Rome. The light in his paintings is Italy´s  light and he always carried inside him that light, that air that left a lasting mark in his soul.

One can be a great painter only when he has a great soul and is able to express his soul through his artwork. Raphael´s drawings reveal his sweetness, strong sensations, and complex emotions.

And all of this is present in the the portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione ; where Raphael gives us a sensitive, lifelike image of his friend ,an image which, in a letter to his wife, Castiglione described as rather hauntingly lifelike. The gloomy tones and the immediacy of the picture show us a man who is listening attentively and thoughtfully to our conversation and seems about to respond, rather than someone so far away and above us that we can have no hope of gaining his ear. This image had a tremendous impact on later portrait painters from Rubens to Velázquez (in the portrait of Conde-Duque of Olivares)  and beyond, and for very good reasons. It masterfully celebrates intelligence, good taste, and good manners so that, even if we did not know the identity of the sitter (Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer, best known for his (The Courtier) , these qualities would be readily apparent to any sensitive observer.

On 11th of March 1525 Baldassarre Castiglione arrived in Madrid; and was received solemnly at the Imperial court, where he congratulated Charles V for his victory at Pavia.

It's been 487 years and in Madrid we are excited to receive this gentleman again. 

After his death in Toledo 1529 a monument was erected in the sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie, outside of his birthplace at Mantua. It was designed by the pupil of Raphael, well represented in this exhibition too: Giulio Romano, and was inscribed with the following words:

“Baldasssare Castiglione of Mantua, endowed by nature with every gift and the knowledge of many disciplines, learned in Greek and Latin literature, and a poet in the Italian (Tuscan) language, was given a castle in Pesaro on account of his military prowess, after he had conducted embassies to both great Britain and Rome. While he was working at the Spanish court on behalf of Clement VII, he drew up the Book of the Courtier for the education of the nobility; and in short, after Emperor Charles V had elected him Bishop of Avila, he died at Toledo, much honored by all the people. He lived fifty years, two months, and a day. His mother, Luigia Gonzaga, who to her own sorrow outlived her son, placed this memorial too him in 1529”

I hope to have able able to give you some simple ideas to come and enjoy the exhibition