Raphael: A Sensitive Genius

This documentary brings back to the world the sensitive genius of Raphael, one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance, five hundred years after his death. The art historian Luca Tomìo guides us through our journey to retrace Raphael's artistic education, starting from his birthplace, the Duchy of Urbino. In the workshop of his father Giovanni Santi, also an excellent painter, Raphael was confronted with giants of the Renaissance art such as Piero della Francesca and Antonio del Pollaiolo since a young age. With the help of documents, unpublished testimonies, and an expert theatre company, we have retraced the decisive events of his life. Firstly, the event of his father's untimely death, which left him orphan at eleven years old, inevitably influencing his artistic vision. We involved expert researchers, restorers, and art critics, including the great Achille Bonito Oliva, to relive the artist's outstanding encounters. From the one with Perugino, becoming then his pupil in Perugia, to those with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. The descendants of the clients who facilitated Raphael's success, opened the doors of their private palaces for us. We went even further, entering the emblematic places of the Italian Renaissance, such as Palazzo Corsini, where we documented the only artwork still in Raphael’s private collection: the cartoon for the portrait of Pope Julius II.In Rome, where at the height of his success Raphael created the Raphael Rooms, we went to discover the wonders designed with his mentor Donato Bramante, like the church of Sant'Eligio degli Orefici and the façade of Palazzo Spada.An unpublished and compelling documentary that travel as far as St. Petersburg, which holds, in its boundless Hermitage Museum and in the Christian Culture Museum, few masterpieces by the artist from Urbino. A tribute to the genius, an unmissable journey in the life of Raphael "from whom as long as he lived, Mother Nature feared to be defeated, and when he died, she feared to die with him".

Genre

Art, Culture, History

Language

English (UK), Italian

Year

2020

Duration

1h 30m

Format

4K