Saint Georges Raphaël

7/27/2019 Saint Georges Raphal

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A Drawing for Raphael's 'Saint George'Author(s): John ShearmanSource: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 125, No. 958 (Jan., 1983), pp. 2+15-25Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/880868Accessed: 19/10/2010 05:19

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THE SERLUPI CHAPELfo110v ... ActumRome in domo olite habitationisorundemominorumohannis

Philippi et Marci Antonii in regioneSancti Angeli presentibust ceteradomino ohanneBaptista de Accattaris alernitano ausarum rocuratoretlacoboohanneMarzerii ...... ] testibus tcetera.Curtius accociuseSantisnotariusepremissisogatus.b)Act of 28th September 1561 regarding the appointment of twoarbitrators in connection with the difference over the decoration of the

Serlupi Chapel.Collegio dei NotariCapitolini,Vol.1519

f0708v Indictioneuintamensisseptembrisievigesimactava 561.In presentiaetc. personaliter onstitutinobilis dominusJo:PhilippusdeSerlupisex una et magisterFranciscus e Picchispictorex alterasponte tc.ac omni meliorimodoetc. compromiserunttc. omnesdifferentiastc. quashabentetc. de et super aboritiiset picturaper ipsummagistrum ranciscumfacta in capella SteMarie de Araceli cum omnibusdependentibustc. indominumAlex.m Corvinum lectumpro parte dicti dominiJo:Philippi etdominumMarium FalerinumamiliaremReverendissimiominiCar.li deAug.a [Cardinalisde Augusta]electumpro partemagistriFrancisciarbitrosabsentesetc. quibusetc. dederunt otestatem tc. procedendic terminandietc. de iure et defacto etc. uni dare et alteritollereetc.proutsibi meliusvidebitur tc. et in eventum iscordie uod psi dominiarbitripossinteligeretertiumquorumarbitrorum ut uniuseorumet tertioetc. promiseruntmnilaudoetc. stare etc. et non reclamaretc. nec ad arbitriumtc. subpenaetc.

quingentorumcutorumro medietateamereurbiset pro alia parti etc. menotariotc.presentetc....f0709r ... ActumRome in domoeiusdem omini o:Philippi n RegioneSti Angelipresentibusetc. AlexandroSperanzade Sto MartinoAquilanediocesisetDomenicouondam ntoniiAngelideSerchianoenenseestibustc.c) Act of 8th October 1561 containing the verdict of the arbitratorsregarding the differenceover the decorationof the SerlupiChapel.Collegio dei NotariCapitolini,Vol.1519f0733v Indictione uintamensis ctobrisieoctava 561.In presentiaetc. personaliter onstitutidominusAlexanderCorvinus tMarius Falerius arbitrietc. electipropartedomini o:Philippide Serlupis tmagistri Franciscide Pichis pictorisiuxtapotestatem isdematributamncompromisson actis mei notarii inter dictaspartes acto sub die XXVIIIseptembrisproximi preteriti habita etiam informatione t asseereunt etconsilio peritorumartis picture declararunt audaruntet pronuntiaruntdictum dominumJo:Philippumacto prius computonter ipsumet dictummagistrumFranciscum e pecuniisper ipsummagistrum ranciscumb ipsodominoJo:Philippo habitis teneri et obligatumesse ad supplendumtsolvendumpsi magistroFranciscousquead summaquingentorumcutorummoneteet ad id dictum dominumo:Philippumcondemnaruntmnimeliorimodo etc. Rogantesetc. ActumRome n domomei notarii n RegionePineepresentibus tc. dominoPetropauloCornelioAretinoet Mauritiolio dominiVirgiliideRuffis omanoestibustc.

JOHN SHEARMAN

A drawing f o r Raphael's ' S a i n t G e o r g e 'THE introduction of an unknown drawing forRaphael's Saint George,now in Washington, may beginas a commentary on an item in the sale catalogue ofRobert Udny's drawings, May 1803:347 One ST. GEORGE, A CAPITAL PENDESIGN, madet is saidforK. HenryVIIIN.B. Fifty guineas have been refused for thisdrawing.'This drawing, which is published here (Fig.1), haspreserved its eighteenth-century mat, on the back ofwhich is written, in William Esdaile'shand:. .. y's colln 1803 WE N 132 This drawing was madefor the order of St George for Henry 8.th & Mr.Udny refus'd 50 gS for it.' 2William Esdaile's monogram appears in the bottomright corner of the recto of the drawing, whereasRobert Udny's, upside down, is in the same corner ofthe mat. After its reappearance in the Esdaile sale,1840, there appears to be no further published recordof it, but probably it never left England; it came to thepresent owner by inheritance.Robert Udny, who died in 1802, acquired most of hisdrawings in Italy; they were purchasedon his behalf byhis brother John, Consul at Livorno.3The prominent

collector's mark, like a fleur-de-lys, next to Esdaile's, isthe one identified (from a drawing at Oxford, in-scribed by Udny) as that of 'Ercole Lilly';4 the twodrawings by Raphael in Udny's sale immediatelybefore Saint George were said to have come from 'Sig.Lolli'. This was probably the engraverErcole Lelli, whowas Director of the Academy in Bologna from 1754.The mount, however, is inscribed in French, Raphaeld'Urbin, and there is a coat-of-arms in the lower leftcorner which I have not identified. A much earlierowner may be proposedfrom a studyof the verso.The drawing, when I first saw it, was glued to themount, but traces of architectural studies on the versowere faintly visible. When the sheet was lifted, twostudies for elaborate tabernacles were revealed(Fig.17), together with an inscription, between them,un bon scolarodi Raffaelle- an attempt, probably, bysome subsequent Italian collector to account for theirpresence on the back of a drawing which bore on itsrectoan attribution in a good sixteenth- or seventeenth-century hand: Raffaello Sanctio.5 The tabernacle-studies are attributable, I think, for their vocabulary,syntax and graphic style, to Muzio degli Oddi (1569-1639). There is good comparative material among theseveral studies for doorways, tabernacles and niches intwo volumes at Windsor, Disegni originalidi manodiMuzio Oddida Urbino forexample,Figs 18and 20).6* I am grateful, firstly, to the present owner of the drawing for hisinvitation to publish it, then to several colleagues who have helped invarious ways: Sylvie Beguin, David Brown, Howard Burns, LorneCampbell, Robert Koch, Andrew Robison and TimothyStephens.1 Catalogue of the entire cabinet of Robert Udny, Esq., Part III . . . Drawings,London (Scott and Philipe), 4th-10th May 1803. The copy in the LiverpoolPublic Library is marked with prices and buyers;against No.347 is written:Thame .12-.

2 William Esdaile Sale, Christie's, 18thJune 1840, No.62: 'St. George andthe Dragon; very spirited;from Mr. Udny's Collection';boughtby Farrier.3 W. BUCHANAN: Memoirsof Painting ... in England,London 11824], III,p.11.

4 Lugt 2852.s When the sheet was lifted by Michael Warnes the watermarkalso becamevisible; it is very similar to Briquet4833.6 Royal Library, Vols 182-3; in Vol. 182, especially Nos.9983, 9992, 10035,10049, 10067 (fols 7, 13, 51, 63 verso,67). Muzio's interest in Raphael isexpressed here by studies after Palazzo dell'Aquila (9976, fol.1) andPalazzo Bresciano (9980, fol.4, and 9989, fol.11)

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A DRAWING FOR RAPHAEL'S 'SAINT GEORGE'Muzio degli Oddi had a distinguished nd at timesturbulent career as architect in Urbino, Loreto, Milanand Lucca, and he was Professor of Mathematics atUrbino and author of mathematical works.' When heretired to Urbino in 1637 he bought Raphael's father'shouse, quite possibly inspired by the knowledge ofsome earlier family connection; for the notary dealingwith the inheritance of Giovanni Santi in 1499-1500

had been Matteo degli Oddi (and of course Raphael,soon after, had enjoyed the patronage of Maddalenadegli Oddi in Perugia). The alterations Muzio effectedin the house are listed at length in a holographmemor-andum of Ist January 1637; they include an agree-ment with the mason 'di fare nella stanza dove i lamadonna i Raffaelloin casamia, unpezzo di solaio' andwhen he wrote Raffaello it closely resembled the in-scription on the recto f the SaintGeorge rawing.s In hisWill he disposed of his 'libraria studio'with care, andordered a detailed inventory to be made of his'instrumentimathematici,ibri, scritture,tatuette, disegni';9he wanted this material to be set aside for the use of theyoung artists of Urbino, and seems even to havethought at one point of some kind of academy attachedto San Luca.'o It is certain, however, that the drawingshe left were not all, like those at Windsor, his own, forthere is another volume formerly his, now in theBiblioteca Laurenziana in Florence, which is a scrap-book of over three hundred folios, each with one tothree drawings stuck down to the rectos;and thesedrawings are the work of many different architectsapart from Muzio." There is no handwriting ofMuzio's in this volume to be comparedwith that on theSaint Georgedrawing; but he is a likely owner of thelatter, and it is easy to imagine how it might have comeinto his hands.To return to the entry in Robert Udny's sale cata-logue: the assertion that the drawing was made forHenry VIII is one which the majority of modernopinion would make about the Saint Georgepanelin Washington (Fig.23), except that a more precisehistoricism has long since made Henry VII the

recipient. This assumption about the picture hascertainly on occasions been ignored in the literatureonRaphael, and as often more positively refuted inpreference for another - in fact older - tradition, thatan isolated painting of this subject was painted forDuke Guidobaldo I of Urbino."2 But a more open-minded scepticism begins, as is perhaps natural in theliterature of a collection rather than an artist, with FernRusk Shapley's Catalogueof the Italian Paintings n theNational Galleryof Art.'3As the question has a bearingnot only upon the sources of Raphael's ideas, but alsoupon their date and interpretation, it must be brieflyexamined here.'4The convention that a Saint Georgewas sent as apresent to Henry VII is of long standing and grows bytwo distinct steps. So far as I can discover the idea of anEnglish destination first occurred to Andr6 Felibien.The several official posts occupied by F6libien madeit natural, perhaps, that he should think of the Ordersof Chivalry when writing in the Entretiens f Raphael'spair of panels, Saint Michael and Saint George hen, asnow, in the Louvre, for it was presumablyon that basisthat he believed the former to have been painted forFrancis I, the latter for Henry VIII.'" His conclusion

7 ANON. (Padre CARLOGROSSI): Commentariodegli uomini llustri di Urbino,Urbino [1819], p.227; A. VERNARECCI: Nuovi documenti intorno MuzioOddi', Nuova rivistaMisena, VI [1893], pp.195 ff.; L. SERVOLINI:'MuzioOddi architetto urbinatedel Seicento', Urbinum, I [1932],fasc. 6, pp.7ff.' Urbino, Archivio della Biblioteca Universitaria, Busta 53, fasc. vi,Memoriede' Censi, e d'Altri Conti (1630-38). This is perhaps the earliestrecorded attribution of the fresco Madonnato Raphael. The history ofGiovanni Santi's house is very complex, and much better sense could bemade of it by a study of these documents. There is considerableearlierandlater documentation in L. PUNGILEONI:Elogio storico di Raffaello Santi daUrbino, Urbino [1829], pp.271-73, and G. BARDOVAGNI:Cenno storico sullacasa paterna di Raffaello Sanzio', Rassegnabibliograficaell'arte taliana, VI[1903], pp.97 ff. The room with the fresco Madonnawas still called the 'saladegli Oddi' in 1703, and Muzio's collection (or part of it) of mathematicalinstruments and pictureswas still in the house.9 Archivio cited in n.8, Busta 42, fasc. 5, No.57, Copiadellaparticoladeltestamento el sign. Muzio Oddiintorno lla sua librariae studio; he division ofthe rest of his property between the families of his sisters is described inBusta 53, fasc. vii, fols.65 ff.10 L. SERVOLINI: 'II Manoscritto Antaldo Antaldi sugli artisti marchigiani',Urbinum1936], fasc. 1-6, p.15;PUNGILEONI,p.cit.in n.8, p.272 n." Biblioteca Laurenziana, Cod. Ashburnham, App. 1828; I follow theidentification by H. BURNS:Progetti di Francesco di Giorgio per i conventidi San Bernardino e Santa Chiara di Urbino', Studi BramanteschiAtti delCongresso nternazionale,Milan-Urbino-Rome, 1970), Rome [1974], p.296;and, idem: 'A drawing by L. B. Alberti', Architecturalesign,49, Nos.5-6,pp.45ff.

12 G. P. LOMAZZO: Trattatodell'artede la Pittura ..., Milan [1584], p.48(reprinted in V. GOLZIO: affaellonei documenti.., Vatican City [1936],p.309): 'quel San Giorgio,che gia fece (Raffaello)al Duca d'Urbino opraunTavoliere'; he other Saint Georgeand the Dragonattributed by Lomazzo toRaphael, in San Vittore in Milan, was recorded there again by FRANCISCUSand ANDREAS SCHOTTUS: Itinerarium nobiliorum regionum, urbium, oppidorum,et locorumItaliae (first ed. [1600]), Vicenza [1610], Part I, p.127 (theyprobably follow Lomazzo, but write as if they had been to the church). c. H.CLOUGH: 'The Relations between the English and Urbino Courts, 1474-1508', Studies n theRenaissance, IV [1967], p.202, has stated that the SaintGeorge n Washington was painted for 'Duke Guidobaldo's own collection',and that the SaintGeorgen the Louvrewas given by the Duke to Henry VII,It is sometimes stated that Lomazzo described a copy; he did not. Thecontinuity of the tradition beginning here, that a Saint Georgewas paintedfor the Duke of Urbino, is to be traced through to the annotation of theSiena [1792] edition of Vasari's Vite, V, p.247. A. SPRINGER:affael undMichelangelo,Leipzig [1878], II, p.499, still said that the Washington SaintGeorge,then in the Hermitage, was painted for the Duke of Urbino, theLouvre diptych not. On the other hand E. MiNTZ:Rapha'l,Paris [1881],pp.117, 226, was sure that the diptych had been painted for Guidobaldo,the Hermitage picture for Henry VII. Mention should be made of anotherclaim for the provenance of the Washington Saint George,made only byEnglish writers; J. RICHARDSON,nr and Jnr: An accountof the Statues,Bas-reliefs,Drawingsand Pictures n Italy, France,&c. with Remarks,London[1754], p.14 (first ed.[1722]) stated, presumably thinking of Vorsterman'sengraving of 1627, that it was 'done for an Ancestor of my Lord Pembroke'.Somewhat the same idea was noted by GEORGEERTUEquoted by F.R.SHAPLEY:National Gallery of Art: Catalogueof the Italian Paintings,Washington [1979], p.393, n.4): that it had been given by Castiglione to anearly Lord Pembroke.13 op. cit. in n. 12,pp.391ff.14 Accepting the assumption that the Washington Saint Georgewascommissioned by Guidobaldo to be sent to Henry VII implies a date for thecommission in the Spring of 1505: J. SHEARMAN:Raphael at the Court ofUrbino', THEBURLINGTONAGAZINE,XII [1970],p.77, n.23.is A. FELIBIEN:ntretiensur les vieset sur les ouvragesesplus excellenseintres(first ed. [1685]), Trevoux [1725], p.333: 'fly a deuxpetitstableauxurboisqui sont de sa premieremanitre:l'un representen Saint Michel qu'ilfit pourFranfois I. & l'autre un Saint George qu'il peignit pour Henri VIII. Roid'Angleterre';he mentions separately (p.337) the Saint George in thecollection of the Marquis de Sourdis - that is, the Washington picture -which he knew came from the King of England (Charles I). I would stillargue (as in loc. cit. in n.14) that the Louvre diptych is likely to have beenordered by Giovanna della Rovere, whose father and brother (Guidobaldo)had been invested with the Order of the Garter, her husband and son withthe Ordre de Saint-Michel. The provenance of the Louvre diptych is securefrom the point when it passed from Mazarin's collection (see n. 16) to that ofLouis XIV; earlier it seems to have been owned by Conte Ascanio Sforza(see the description, in G. P.LOMAZZO:e rime,Milan [1587], p.181, of twopictures copied by Pietro MartirStresi).

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A DRAWING FOR RAPHAEL'S 'SAINT GEORGE'is all the more striking since the diptych (as it thenwas) had recently been acquired from the MazarinCollection with the reputation that it had been paintedin 1504 for the Duke of Urbino.'6 Fdlibien's theory,which had the neatness of symmetry even if it was anodd way of interpreting a diptych or libretto,"7 asimmediately confused when repeated by Florent LeComte in 1699 with the additional observation that theLouvre Saint George,painted for Henry VIII, wasengraved while in the Pembroke Collection;"s he printby Lucas Vorsterman (1627) is of course after theWashington picture. This muddle was resolved byFrangois Bernard Lepicie (1754), who said thatHenry VIII's picture was the one now in Washing-ton; 9 and that conclusion, solidified as a tradition, isthe one on which Robert Udny's catalogue-entry, andseveral later texts, rest.20The second step was taken, I think, by J. D.Passavant, who asked himself how the Saint Georgebythen in the Hermitage) arrived in England;21and heread the recently-published account by BernardinoBaldi of Castiglione's mission on behalf of Guidobaldoto Henry VII, to respond to the King's investiture ofthe Duke with the Order of the Garter, where it wassaid that Castiglione had been sent with 'alcunigrandiegenerosicorsieri,con alconi, ed altri presentinobili'.22 TheSaint George,t was said (but not by Baldi, nor any otherearly source), was among these presenti;and that hasbeen assumed to be a fact by many subsequent writers,including myself.23 The literary tradition traced heremust suggest, on the contrary, that the 'fact' wascreated by taking thought, not always advisedly. Was it,nevertheless, a correctintuition?

The provenance of the Washington Saint George anbe traced back with confidence to the moment whenCharles I acquired it by exchange from the Earl ofPembroke; it was in the latter's collection whenengraved in 1627. That it does not appear in theinventories of Henry VIII is worth little, because thoseinventories do not account for all the royal palaces. Itseems more difficult to account for good Italiancopies, such as the one in the Pinacotecaat Spoleto,andfor clear reflections of the Saint Georgen Italian six-teenth-century art, if the picture had been dispatchedto England.24 An early reflection of Raphael's designappears in a small fresco by Lotto over the apse of SanGiorgio at Credaro; there are some very precise recol-lections - of the horse's trappings, for example - butthe colours are quite different and Lotto may haveknown a preliminary drawing in which Saint Georgeheld a shield (to be discussed below)."2 A less easilyexplained imitation is Battista Dossi's large SaintGeorgeof 1540 now in Dresden, where the references toRaphael's are numerous and very precise (to theinclusion of the garter, for example).26 That exampleprompts a suggestion: that the Earl of Pembroke'spicture had previously been in Ferrara, and was the'quadro. .. unoSto Giorgiodi Rafaello da Orbino'set up byBastianino in the Duchess's chapel 'in corte'at Ferrarain 1586 - a picture which does not reappear, I think, inthe documentation of the subsequent dispersal of theFerrarese collection.27 It is known that Isabella d'Estehad the opportunity to acquire treasures of the DellaRovere during their long exile form Urbino, 1516-23;28 perhaps the d'Estein Ferrara id thesame.The probability, in any case, that the Saint Georgeremained in Italy rather than being sent to England,removes one possible way of interpreting the relation-ship between the painting and the images of SaintGeorge and the Dragon found in the regalia of theOrder of the Garter, particularly the pendants knownas the Great George and Lesser George. It is uncertain,in fact unlikely, that the regalia had taken definitiveform in the reign of Henry VII. However, the legationto Emperor Maximilian in 1502 'shewed unto thaim ofa George whiche every Companion of that Ordre sholdwere And also a colar the patron (drawing?)wherofweshewed unto thaim according to our instructions'.29And the instructions for the investiture of Guidobaldoin 1504 list the garter, the purple gown, the bluemantle and a George: 'Imaginem gloriosissimi martiris

16 GABRIEL-JULES, COMTE DE COSNAC: Les richessesdu Palais Mazarin, Paris[1884], p.330."7In the 1661 Mazarin inventory (cit. in n.16): 'Un autrequisefermeendeuxen forme de couverture e cuir . .. la dicte ermeture rniede quelques rnemensd'argentet de cuivre' (they had been separated by 1695). Such works wereknown in Italy as libretti, libricini,or libri; see, for example, A. ALLORI:Ricordi, d. I. Supino, Florence[1908], p.21.18 FLORENT ECOMTE:Cabinetdes singularitez 'architecture,einture, culptureetgraveure, aris [1699], II, p.64.19 F. B. LEPICIE:Catologueraisonn destableaux duRoi ... , Paris [1754], p.91.20 For example the tradition enters the monographs through a footnoteadded by F. LONGHENAo his edition of QUATREMEREEQUINCY: storia dellavita e delleoperedi RaffaelloSanzio. .. Milan [1829], p.38, where (referringto a contorno in c. P. LANDON: Annales du Musie) the picture now inWashington, or one like it, was said to have been painted for Henry VIII.QUATREMEREDE QUINCY himself, in Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages deRaphal, Paris [1824], had said that both paintings of Saint Georgeand theSaintMichael)were painted for Guidobaldo.21 J. D. PASSAVANT:Rafael von Urbinound sein VaterGiovanniSanti, Leipzig[1839], I, pp.109-10; PASSAVANT'Sichly-earnedauthority must account forthe persistence of his version of events, but it was reinforcedby the no lessimpressive assent of j. DENNISTOUN:Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, London[1851], II, pp.223, 448 (the cautious phrase 'in all probability' beinggenerally overlooked). PASSAVANTnew the date of Castiglione's embassy,July 1506, and attached it to the picture; a correction, based on the samefundamental assumptions, was offered by A. SCHMARSOW: Raphael'sheiliger Georg in St. Petersbourg', Jahrbuch der kiniglich preuszischenKunstsammlungenI [1881], pp.254ff. He pointed out that Castiglione'sjourney was delayed by illness, and that the commission should have beengiven earlier, between September 1504and, at the latest, March 1505.22 B. BALDI: Vitae fatti di Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, uca d'Urbino,Milan[1821], II, p.190. For the Duke's investiturewith the Order see CLOUGH,p.cit. in n.12, pp.206-07.23 I should now wish to withdraw the interpretation of the Torre delleMilizie, in the background of Raphael's painting, as a compliment to HenryVII ('Raphael, Rome, and the Codex Escurialensis', MasterDrawings,XV[1977], pp.132-33), and leave the alternative, that it stands as an emblem ofthe Mileschristianus.

24 The Spoleto copy (Pinacoteca No.31), from the collection of CesareDetti, has a different landscape and looks Lombard to me; there is anaccurate replica of excellent quality, apparently sixteenth-century Italian,in a private collection in London.25 Reproduced in P. BIANCONI: Tutta la pitturadi LorenzoLotto,Milan [1955],II, Fig.94b.26 F.L. GIBBONS: Dosso and Battista Dossi, Princeton [1968], p.237 andFig. 150.27 A. VENTURI: 'Quadri in una cappella estense nel 1586', Archivio toricodell'arte,I [1888], pp.425-26; he warns that some attributions on this listmay be unreliable. The Duchess in question would be MargheritaGonzaga,Alfonso's third wife. His sister Lucrezia had been married briefly toFrancesco Maria II of Urbino, but is unlikely to have returned to Ferrarawith presents.28 GOLZIO, op.cit. in n.12, p.50.29 J.ANSTIS: TheRegister f theMostNobleOrder f theGarter.. calledTheBlackBook,London [1724], I, p.85n.

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A DRAWING FOR RAPHAEL'S 'SAINT GEORGE'Georgii . . . in collo tuo deferes'.30 o pendant of thisvery early date survives, and one of the earliest ofwhich there is some visual record must be Sir HenryGuildford's Great George, recorded in Holbein'sportrait at Windsor, probably of 1527 (Sir Henry wasmade Knight of the Garter in 1526). That Guido-baldo's ImagoGeorgiiwas similar in design is suggestedby the appearance of the same pattern (with theaddition of a cape billowing behind the rider) on asilver coin of his successor, Duke Francesco Maria I,minted before 1516.31At this point it is imperative to recall that thetraditions of representing Saint George and thedragon are exceptionally rich, and what passes forsimilarity in other cases will not do here.32The typewith the horse in profile to the right, rearing over thedragon (as in Sir Henry's pendant) is certainly wellestablished in Northern Europe in the fifteenthcentury; it has been suggested, probably wrongly, thata lost Saint Georgeby Jan van Eyck was of this type.33Some details which seem, in this context, unusual in SirHenry Guildford's Great George are the straight legsof the rider, braced against the stirrups, a true lance-thrust with right elbow raised but hand down (a spear-thrust with hand raised is much more common), andthe curling of the dragon's tail around the horse's rearlegs, the lance entering the dragon's mouth. In mostdetails this pattern exists already in the BoucicautHours.34 In all these and other respects the pendant issimilar in design to a drawing by Perino del Vaga atBudapest (Fig.15)." Perino's drawing, however,

deserves consideration as a copy of an early stage in thedesign of Raphael's Saint George.The armour is similarto that eventually shown in the painting, save for thehelmet, and it may be noticed that the saddle is com-plete, as in studies which are securely Raphael's,whereas that in the picture is not. The rather surpris-ingly mature and solid anatomy of the horse arisesfrom study of the Battleof Anghiari it is the right-handhorse of the Battle of theStandard roup, reversed);andfrom Leonardo's mural, not its cartoon, comes thedistinctive helmet with crouching, winged dragon.36Itis a little bizarre that the dragon on the helmet seems tomenace the one on the ground. The raised wing of thelatter, between the forelegs of the horse, closes thedesign in a sculpturally satisfactory manner. Thecharacter of design overall is not much like Perino'sown, but he may have exercised his invention in thetrappings of the horse, and his fantasy in the barely-indicated plumes on its head."3The hypothesis that the Budapest drawing is a copyof a lost design by Raphael is much strengthened, itseems to me, by a very similar drawing, probably alsoby Perino, at Stockholm (Fig.13); I owe my knowledgeof this latter to Bernice Davidson, who suggested that Ishould publish her discovery.38The rider is the same,save for one detail of his armour, and he wears oncemore the dragon-helmet and billowing cape. Thehorse has been changed through the turning of itshead, so that it recalls different Leonardesque models,and the dragon - anatomically the same monster - isfalling in the reverse direction, towards us." Thecompositional type is still essentially that of the GreatGeorge, with the dragon's tail coiled round the horse'srear legs, and the overall design pyramidal. In thebackground the princess watches from the steps of apalace. This drawing gives the impression of being amore faithful record of the graphic style of a lost studyby Raphael, above all in the schematic renderingof thebackground.

30 DENNISTOUN, op. cit. in n.21, II, pp.443-44; the investiture took place inRome on 22nd May 1504.3' There is a reproduction of the detail of the Holbein in o. MILLAR:udor,Stuart and Early GeorgianPicturesin the Royal Collection,London [1963],P1.18. The coin is reproduced in P. LITLA: Celebriamiglie italiane,dispensa151 [1866], pl. II. No.7. According to ELIAS SHMOLE:heInstitution, aws &Ceremoniesf the Most Noble Orderof the Garter,London [1672], pp.220ff.,and J. L.NEVINSON:The Earliest Dress and Insignia of the Knights of theGarter', Apollo, XLVII [1948], p.83, there should be a pendant Georgebelow the Collar on the monument of Sir Giles Daubeney, c.1508, inWestminster Abbey, but I could not see it. The distinction between theGreat George and Lesser George was not established by statute before thereign of Henry VIII, but those statutes codified the practice of Henry VII(ASHMOLE,oc.cit.); the Great George is a pendant to a collar of Garters,andit should show 'the image of St. George arm'd Sitting on Horseback, whohaving thrown the Dragon on his back encounters him with a TiltingSpear'; the Lesser George hangs usually from a ribband, and shows,enclosed in a Garter, the rider with drawn sword. ASHMOLE'Sngraved plateshows the former turned to the right (like Sir Henry Guildford's), the latterto the left.32 There are partial surveys of the material in: o. VONTAUBE VON DER ISSEN:Die Darstellungdes heiligenGeorg n der italienischen unst,Halle [1910]; w. F.VOLBACH:Der hlg. Georg: bildliche Darstellung in StiddeutschlandmitBernicksichtigunger norddeutschen ypen bis zur Renaissance,Strasbourg[1917]; s. BRAUNFELS-ESCHE:ankt Georg: Legende, Verehrung, ymbol,Munich [1976].33 One could, it seems, see the reflection of the dragon in the armourof thesaint's left leg (R.WEISS:Jan van Eyck and the Italians', ItalianStudies,XI[1956], pp.1 1-12). The picture was acquired in Bruges in the Spring of1444, for presentation to Alfonso V of Aragon; it had arrived in Naples byJune 1445.34 Fol.23 verso;M. MEISS: FrenchPaintingin the Timeof Jean de Berry:TheBoucicautMaster,London [1968], P1.10. The engraving by the Master E.S.,L.146, is similar. More exact precedents for the Great George type arereproduced by VOLBACH,p.cit. in n.32, Pls. IIb, IIIc, Vc (stained-glassandrelief-sculpture), and BRAUNFELS-ESCHE,p.cit. n n.32, Fig.80 (a banner).3' Raffaello Emlikkidllitis, Szepmiiveszeti Muizeum [1970], No.41.The drawing should perhaps be dated in the later 1520s, since in graphicstyle it resembles Perino'sstudies for PalazzoDoria in Genoa.

"6 Most clearly seen in the ex-Doria copy, repr. C. PEDRETrI: Leonardo aVinci inedito,Florence [1968], Fig.68. The helmet-type has a complicatedhistory; in Italy it may be found in copies of the lost bronze relief byVerrocchio of Alexander (or Scipio); rather surprisingly it is found muchearlier in the Eyckian ThreeMariesat theSepulchrerom the Van BeuningenCollection. In this detail and others the Budapest drawing, if it is a copyafter Raphael, is another illustration of the way in which he never wastes anidea; he recalled the design, I believe, when working on the Expulsion fHeliodorus, robably in 1511.37 The radial crupper over the horse's rump, however, was probably partof Raphael's design; such harness may be found, for example, in the SaintGeorgepanel in the altar-piece attributed to Margalde Sas in the Victoriaand Albert Museum, and in Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes n Palazzo Medici.38 Stockholm, National Museum, 297/1863, attributed to G. F. Penni. Onthe mount is an early title RAFAELLO,and the inscriptionCabinet eCrozat.I have not seen this drawing, but I am convinced from the photograph byMiss Davidson's attribution to Perino (earlier, I would suggest, than thedrawing in Budapest).39 It is unlikely that we have recordsof all Leonardo's horse-studies,and itmay be wrong to insist on particular sources; poses similar to this one arefound in the engraving after four models for the Sforza horse (repr. L. H.HEYDENREICH: Leonardoda Vinci, New York [1954], II, Fig.94), and instudies for a subsidiary group in the Battleof Anghiari Windsor 12339 - infact the horse immediately to the right of the one copied by Raphael,c. 1505, in a drawing at Oxford: K. T. PARKER:atalogue f the CollectionfDrawings in the AshmoleanMuseum, II: Italian Schools, Oxford [1956],No.535).

18


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13. St Georgeand thedragon,by Perino del Vaga, probably afterRaphael. Pen and brown ink, 26.1 by 19.9 cm. (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).

14. Sheet with St George and the dragon and reclining figures, by Perino del Vaga afterRaphael. Pen and brownink, 22.5 by 28.9 cm. (Uffizi, Florence).

15. St George nd thedragon,by Perino del Vaga, probably after Raphael. Pen and brownink, 21.4 by 26 cm. (SzepmiiveszetiMUizeum,Budapest).

16. St Geodrawing21.4 cm


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17.Studiesor tabernacles,ere attributed o MuziodegliOddi. Blackchalk,penandbrownnk,25 by 35.5 cm. Versof drawing eproducedsFig.1.(Private ollection,England).

18. Study or a tabernacle, y Muzio degli Oddi.Pen and ink, 20 by 13.5 cm. (Vol.182, Fol.7r,Royal Library, Windsor). ReproducedbyGracious ermissionfHerMajestyheQueen.

19. St George nd theDragon,by Martin Schongauer.Engraving, diameter 8.5 cm.

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20. Study or a tabernacle,y Muzio degli Oddi. Blackchalk,25.5 by 20.4 cm. (Vo1.182, Fol.13r, Royal Library,Windsor). Reproducedy Gracious ermissionf HerMajesty heQueen.


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A DRAWING FOR RAPHAEL'S 'SAINT GEORGE'Perino del Vaga was heir to much of Raphael'slegacy of drawings,4 but it would be silly, of course,to insist that the Budapest and Stockholm drawingsreproduce Raphael's first thoughts, inspired by part ofthe regalia received by Guidobaldo. If it were so,however, it would be easy to understand why Raphael,and perhaps Guidobaldo, so radically changed theirminds, and drew upon other traditions; the Garter

itself, which is worn on the left leg, could not be visiblewith the horse facing right. The first known design inthe reverse direction is represented by a severely-damaged, almost illegible, silverpoint-drawing in theAshmolean Museum (Fig.22);41 assessment of thisdrawing is bedevilled by its reduction to the silhouetteof horse and rider, even those incomplete, and thiscut-out is pasted at the wrong angle on its modernmount. The drawing in Oxford does not seem to havebeen taken seriously for a hundred years.42Somethingvery like it, however, was again recordedby Perino in adrawing in Florence (Fig.14).43 At this stage in thework, possibly the first with the horse moving to theleft, the rider bore an oval shield on his left arm, andstruck the dragon with a sword raised in his right hand.In Perino's version the saint seems to wear a complexhelmet all' antica; n the Oxford silverpoint the helmethas been cut around a simple, circularprofile, and anyembellishment would have been lost just as the swordwas. The saint's all' anticaarmour and the posture ofthe dragon in Perino's drawing may be figments asmuch of his imagination as of his memory. Never-theless his record, and the Oxford drawing, togetherbear witness to a moment in Raphael's thinking whenhe was inspired by a tradition best represented bySchongauer's early engraving (Fig.19); the connectionshould be stated in this cautious manner becauseSchongauer himself drew upon a pictorial tradition."4

Raphael took from this tradition the leaping, ratherthan rearing, action of the horse, seen from behind,and the raised arm wielding a sword rather than alance; that choice of weapon was also, of course, areversion to his earlier Saint George,paired with SaintMichael, now in the Louvre, and it may have beensuggested by a Garter-pendant of the kind known asthe Lesser George.At this stage in the design Raphael conflated - withrather curious results, it seems to me - ideas of aleaping horse like Schongauer's with others of arearing horse drawn from Florentine sculpture. Thefull-tilt and, as it were, committed leap of Schongauer'shorse makes sense because the horse is looking where itis going. The rearing horse in Donatello's reliefbeneath his Saint George n Or San Michele, poised onone spot in something like a levade,no less naturallyturns its head to one side. In fact the front part ofRaphael's horse, even in the eventual painting, looks asif it had been re-drawn from one of the models made

by Leonardo when studying the Battleof Anghiari; achof the models known now, from later bronze casts inBudapest, London and New York, shows a rearinghorse with turned head and'rather extravagantlyextended forelegs.45 What seems very unnatural, inRaphael's horse, is a movement at the front likeLeonardo's propelled by one at the rear likeSchongauer's.46In the drawing at Oxford Saint George rides withthe straight leg braced against the stirrup, a featurewhich persists through all known stages of the design;it might be better related functionally, as we have seen,to a thrust with a lance than to a swing with a sword.The combination adopted here - perhaps drawn onthe one hand from Schongauer, on the other froman earlier design by Raphael similar to Sir HenryGuildford's pendant - this combination does in facttake the artist back almost to the posture of the sword-bearing saint in the earlier panel in the Louvre. It is lessfluent, however; and its awkwardness is resolved inRobert Udny's drawing (Fig.1). The definitive posturereached here is at first derived from the long tradition

40 JACOPO STRADA said that he had acquired 'two boxes' full of drawings byRaphael and Perino from the latter's widow in Rome: see his preface, AlliLettori, to his edition of 11 settimolibro d'architetturai SebastianoSerlioBolognese.. ,Frankfurt- am- Main [1575].41 Its white heightening is in part oxidised. PARKER,p.cit. in n.39, No.44.There is an impeccable entry in J. C. ROBINSON: CriticalAccount f theDrawings by Michel Angelo and Raffaello in the UniversityGalleries,Oxford,Oxford [1870], p.151, No.35; but PASSAVANT,p. cit. in n.21, III [1858],p.253, described the medium as sepia wash, and C.RULAND: he Works fRaphael Santi da Urbinoas representedn The RaphaelCollection n the RoyalLibraryat WindsorCastle,unpublished proof (1868), p.102, Weimar edition[1876], P.111, has pen and ink, as does w. L.OBKE:afaelsLebenundWerke,Leipzig [1875], p.134. LUBKE and J. A. CROWEand G. B. CAVALCASELLE:Raphael.7his Life and Works,London [1882], I, pp.278-79 still take thedrawing to be a preparatory study; it was omitted, presumably consciously,by o. FISCHEL:Raphaels Zeichnungen: Versuch einer Kritik . . . , Strassburg[1898].42 B. BERENSON: 'Nouveaux dessins de Signorelli', Gazettedes Beaux-Arts, eP6r., X [1933], pp.279-80, and Fig.1 (also The Drawings of the FlorentinePainters,second ed., Chicago [1938], I, pp.39-40, III, Fig.117), adopted asuggestion from 0. FISCHEL hat the study was by Signorelli; PARKER,oc. cit.in n.39, retained this attribution, but clearly did not believe a word of theargument. The present state of the drawing reduces any attribution to anact of faith; I have no doubt that it representsa design of Raphael's, and Ican see no reason to deny the traditionalattribution.43 Uffizi 559E; pen and ink, 225 by 289 mm.; B. DAVIDSON: Mostra di disegnidiPerinodel Vaga la suacerchia, lorence [1966],No.23.44 See, for example, a miniature from a book of hours of c.1430-35, JohnCarter Brown Library, Providence, R.I., repr. E. PANOFSKY: EarlyNetherlandishPainting, Cambridge, Mass. [1953], II, Fig.193. A similardesign, but with the saint using a lance, appears in the background ofMemling's DiptychofJeandeCelier n the Louvre.

45 The one in a private collection in London, which the owner has kindlyallowed me to study, is remarkably similar in three-dimensional design;there is aview from almost the appropriateangle in P.JEANNERAT:A newlydiscovered statuette by Leonardoda Vinci', Apollo,XIX [1934], p.314.46 Leonardo made a number of studies for a Saint George on Windsor12331 (A. E. POPHAM: The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, London [1946],P1.86); this drawing is usually, and I feel sure rightly, dated c.1510 or later.One of the studies is remarkablylike the Oxford silverpointdrawing, in theview and posture of the horse and the action of the rider;but the turn of thehorse's head is towards the dragon, rather than the spectator, and thusseems quite natural. Leonardo's drawing is similar enough to raise thequestion whether he, too, knew Raphael's drawings; I think it is much lesslikely that Raphael was following some lost design for a Saint GeorgebyLeonardo. However there is one anatomical eccentricity in the dragonrecorded in Perino's drawing in Budapest, its unicorn-head, which is pre-figured in a drawing of dragons by Leonardo, Windsor 12370 recto(POPHAM,op. cit., P1.62), which is surely much earlier than Raphael'scommission. And A. E. POPHAM: 'The Dragon-Fight', Leonardo: Saggi ericerche,ed. A. Marazza, Rome [1954], pp.223ff., collected Leonardo'sstudies for a battle between horsemen and a dragon, among which somealready show, c.1480, a leaping horse with head turned back; although theeffect is not very similar, it seems possible that Raphael knew some suchdrawing which gave him licence for the definitive posture in his SaintGeorge.The connection between Raphael's horse and Leonardo's drawingswas discussed by VONTAUBEVONDER SSEN,op. cit. in n.32, pp.94-95. 21


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A DRAWING FOR. RAPHAEL'S 'SAINT GEORGE'in which a lance or spear (much more frequently thelatter) is directed at the dragon's mouth; we know thatJan van Eyck's lost picture included this detail.47Perino's drawings in Stockholm and Budapest (Figs 13and 15) suggest that Raphael in fact reverts to some ofhis first thoughts for this picture. Then in a swiftimprovisation he redirected the lance to the dragon'sshoulder, an idea so rare in the visual tradition that itsoccurrence in Donatello's relief seems to confirm thatthat workwas constantly in Raphael'smind.The pen-drawing from Udny's collection is inexcellent condition and one may see that it is full ofimprovisations, though none as radical as the redirec-tion of the lance. Variations between faint black-chalkunderdrawing and the pen-stroke indicate particularlyimportant decisions taken on this sheet in the areasround the rear legs of the horse, its left fore-leg, theprofile of its chest, and the dragon's head (Fig.21); thevigorous coil of the dragon's tail, preserved in all sub-sequent stages of the design, was invented here afterthe pen-drawing had been begun (and it was firstdrawn in chalk much shorter, dog-like, without theloop). The line of the horse's stomach was initiallydrawn appreciably lower, tangential to the loop in thedragon's tail; that relationship is restored in the finaldesign (Fig.23), by making the group more compact.The reinforcement of the very faint underdrawing ofthe rocky cave on the left has barely been begun in pen,and - save for a few trees in the centre - the rest of thelandscape has not been started.48The rock to which thedragon is pinned is loosely begun in pen on the left; itscontinuation in chalk, on the right, hides from view, atthis stage, the lower part of the nearer hind-leg.Different degrees of completion in pen are evidentthroughout the main group: the dragon's fore-leggiven as much thought as the horse's chest and hind-legs, or the rider's elbows, but the horse's head and therider's armour incomplete, the flying cape barelybegun. Why was this study abandoned?The answer to this question must lie in the purposefor which the drawing was made. In the Udny drawingthe pyramidal group has exactly the dimensions of thatin the finished picture; a vertical chalk-line is drawndown the left side precisely where the margin of thepicture will be. Raphael had been accustomed, sinceabout 1503, to use such pen-drawings as cartoons forhis smaller paintings.49 And at a certain point he must

have stood back from this one and seen that it wouldnot do: the proportions of the horse were irretrievablywrong, perhaps as a result of the different artisticorigins of front and rear. He therefore began againand produced the well-known study in the Uffizi(Fig.16), the somewhat mechanical appearance ofwhich is due in large part to the prickingof all signifi-cant outlines for transfer by pouncing to the panel -but in some degree also to a real loss of immediacy as aresult of repetition."s It is instructive to watch, forexample, how the tension in the extended rear leg ofthe dragon in the Udny drawing, relaxed in thecartoon, is restoredin the painting.The refinement of the invention is by no meansfinished, however, in the cartoon. Some significantchanges are made in the armour. The shoulder-plate(pauldron) shown in the Udny drawing has a complexscalloped profile, as in the Budapest and Stockholmdrawings, and as in Schongauer's print; the simplifiedform in the cartoon is a step towards the roundedshape in the picture. In both Raphael's pen-drawingsthere is an awkward relationship between the chain-mail skirt and the saddle, which is resolved in thepainting by the saddle's omission (unless it is hiddenunder the chain-mail). In the two drawings the plates(tassets) protecting the pelvis are suspended from acomplicated overlapping structure of four tace-plateswhich seems to be pushed upwards by the saddle;in the painting the plates hang from a simplifiedsequence of pelvic rings like those visible in the copy atStockholm, and the longest plate is pulled around thethigh where it belongs. In neither drawing is thearmour structurally explicit in all details; this is espec-ially clear in the upper arm. In both drawings theGarter is carefully described, but there is no sword ineither.A small detail in these drawings, but a significantone, lies in the characterisation of the dragon'sferocious snarl. The wrinkling along the nose shown inthe Udny drawing (Fig.21), like that of a very angrydog, is repeated in the pen-work of the Uffizi cartoon;but the pricking of the latter already selects the musclesstretched taut along the nose like those one sees in thepainting.The cartoon, rather surprisingly, was not the finaldrawing. In the Coronationof the Virgin painted c.1503for Perugia, probably Raphael's first work for animportant artistic centre, he took, as is well known, anextra step after the cartoon; he made elaborate headstudies. In this case he seems to have felt the necessityof studying the pattern of light and shade in the wholecomposition more carefully than the pen-drawingswould allow. A severely damaged and not entirely

47 WEISS, loc. ct. in n.33. A miniature from a book of hours by a followerofthe Boucicaut Master, in the Waiters Art Gallery at Baltimore, is a goodexample of this type, with the horse leaping to the left and an authenticlance-thrust to the dragon's mouth (R.H.RANDALL:Jan van Eyck and the StGeorge Ivories', TheJournalof the WaltersArt Gallery,XXXIX [1981], p.43);another is reproducedby PANOFSKY,p.cit. in. n.44, Fig.194.48 The shorthand used for the distant trees is especially similar to that in alandscape-sketch in Oxford (PARKER,p.cit. in n.39, No.34), connected withthe Colonna Altarpiece, c.1505, and recently published by s. FERINO-PAGDEN: Raphael's activity in Perugia reflected in a drawing in theAshmolean Museum, Oxford', Mitteilungendes kunsthistorischennstitutes nFlorenz,XXV [1981], p.233; such idiosyncraticpen-workis also to be foundin a study in the Louvre for a MadonnaReading R.Z.43) and one in theUffizi for the Esterha~yMadonnaR.Z.126), c.1504 and c.1506respectively.49 Earlier pen-drawings which served as cartoons are the Annunciationnthe Louvre, c.1503 (R.Z.28), the Knight'sDreamin the National Gallery,London, c.1504 (R.Z.40), and the Saint Georgen the Uffizi, for the Louvrepainting, c. 1504 (R.Z.57).

so Uffizi, 529E; R.Z.78. The purpose of the drawing was perhaps firstrecognised by J. RICHARDSONnr, op. cit. in n.12, p.63. A study of theblack-chalk underdrawing helps to confirm the prior place of the Udnydrawing, for it is most vigorous in areas not studied in the latter: the lowerpart of the cave, the princess, and the ground beneath her. Particularpreoccupations are the positions of the horse's rear feet, its fore-legs andchest, and there is further study of its head, which ends up shortened (it willbe shortened still more in the painting). There is a significant lack ofhesitation where satisfactory solutions had been found on the Udny sheet,as in the horse's and dragon's tails.22


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21. Detail fromFig. 1, by Raphael.20.5 by 14.3 cm.

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22. St Georgeand the dragon,here attributed to Raphael. Silverpoidown on paper, 26.4 by 23.3 cm. (AshmoleanMuseum,Oxford).


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23. St Georgeand the dragon,by Raphael. Panel, 28.5 by 21.5 cm. (Paul Mellon Collection, NationalGallery of Art, WashingtonD.C.). 24. Detail fromFig.23.


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A DRAWING FOR RAPHAEL'S 'SAINT GEORGE'legible drawing recently acquired by the NationalGallery of Art in Washington is probably the ruin of anoriginal by Raphael;s' the medium is bistre wash withwhite heightening, over black chalk. It is not, as onemight have expected, traced or pounced from thecartoon, but drawn again freehand as is clear from theshifted relationship of the dragon's head and wing, thelance, and the horse's fore-leg. An ambiguity in thepen-drawings, as to whether the dragon's wing isbetween the horse's fore-legs, as in the Budapestdesign, or outside, as in the painting, is here clarifiedby choosing the former solution. Another respect inwhich the Washington drawing recalls earlier ideas isin the treatment of the helmet, which is of flattershapeand has three prominent feathers; they resemble notso much the extravagant plumes of the Saint Georgenthe Louvre diptych as the feathered helmet inSchongauer's engraving (Fig.19), and countless earlierSaint Georges in Gothic art. But the Washingtondrawing is nevertheless likely to follow both the pen-drawings (and the silverpoint in Oxford); the coil ofthe dragon's tail which was invented on the Udny sheetis repeated here and the sword now appears, sus-pended.exactly as in the painting except that it is nearlyvertical: more like Schongauer's,in fact.It may be that we have evidence of six stages in thepreparation of the Washington Saint George; wecertainly know of four. The case-study suggests amuch more painstaking approach to the invention ofsmall works than has been apparent hitherto. Yet thecase would probably be misleading if it were supposedto be typical. Throughout his life Raphael shifted hisfocus, pragmatically, on problems as they came up,and it is a mistake to assume a consistency in prepara-tory technique; in particular he would devote specialattention to works which were critical to the further-ance of his career. Whether or not the WashingtonSaint Georgewas intended to be sent to Henry VII it wasalmost certainly commissioned by Guidobaldo, Dukeof Urbino. It had to be right. And to that end therefining process continued after the drawings, or atleast after any we have. There were details of thearmour and of the horse's harness still to be resolved,and above all the landscape was to receive muchgreater care. A radiograph shows a consistent growthin the weight in the trees on the right compared withthose sketched in the cartoon;52 their number isincreased and their spacing clarified, so that finallythey stand like the columns of the portico of thePantheon. The style and quality of the landscapepainting leaves no doubt, I think, that Raphael wasinspired by one work of Memling's, the diptych nowdivided between Munich (Saint John the Evangelist) and

Washington (St Veronica).53he connection is apparentwhether one looks at foreground plants or middle-ground trees and rocks - Raphael's touch, even, isprecisely imitative; but it is apparent above all in thetreatment of the extreme distance, where whitebuildings stand behind rounded trees which cast longshadows on the grass.The diptych, in the first years of the century, was theproperty of Bernardo Bembo, and during the latter'stour of duty (1502-03) as Podestat of Verona it waslent by his son Carlo to Isabella d'Este."s PerhapsRaphael travelled to Mantua, or Venice, and saw itthere, but more probably he did not need to. BernardoBembo was the senior member of the Venetianembassy to Julius II which was entertainedat Urbino inApril 1505 by Guidobaldo's Duchess Elisabetta (he,himself, was then in Rome)."' Such minuscule works -Memling's panels are almost exactly the size ofRaphael's - are designed, it is often assumed, to beportable. If Raphael's study of the diptych did comeabout in the way suggested here, the implied date forhis Saint George, t the earliest in the summer of 1505, isa little later than the one that would most naturallyhave been deduced from the hypothesis that Castig-lione was to take it to Henry VII.s5 I think it is ingeneral true that Raphael's undated works of theperiod before 1508 have recently been placed ratherearlier than they should have been.

s' I owe my knowledge of this drawing to the kindness of Andrew Robison;it will be exhibited at Washington as this article appears. The provenanceisfrom Lanier and Lely, and the medium is black chalk, warm-brownwashand white heightening, partlyoxidised.52 The radiographwas kindly made available by David Brown.3 The importance of Memling's diptych for Raphael was first establishedby C. VOLPE: Due questioni raffaellesche', Paragone,75 [1956], p.12. Iwould add another quotation from the diptych: of the deer among thebackground trees in the SaintJohn in Raphael's Self-portraitf c.1506 atHampton Court.

54 The most recent and most thorough treatment of this problem is by L.CAMPBELL:Notes on Netherlandish pictures in the Veneto in the fifteenthand sixteenth centuries', THEBURLINGTONMAGAZINE,XXIII[1981], p.471.55 M. SANUTO: I Dianii, ed. Venice [1881], VI, cols.l51, 156, and F. MADIAI:'Diario delle cose di Urbino', Archiviotorico er le March e per l'Umbria, II[1886], p.455. C.M.BROWN:Un tableau perdu de Lorenzo Costa', Pantheon,XXXIX [1981], p.27, has suggested that Isabella kept the diptych until atleast 1506, on the grounds that it might have been the prototype of aVeronicay Costa.56 SHEARMAN,p. cit. in n.14, p.77. It may be noted that the Montefeltro-Della Rovere court was at Gubbio and Fossombrone between June andNovember 1505. Guidobaldo was in Rome from 23rd December 1504 untilat least 8th July 1505. A date for SaintGeorge fter the spring of 1505 is alsoa consequence of accepting Perino's drawings in Budapest and Stockholmas copies of early studies by Raphael, for the dragon-helmet that they bothshow was taken from the painted version of the Battle of Anghiari,begunafter April 1505.

S h o r t e r N o t i c e s

Thequestion f St George's arterBY HELEN S. ETTLINGEROLD egends die hard. In the nineteenthcentury J. D.Passavantwrote that Raphael'sSt Georgend heDragon,henin the Hermitageand todayin the NationalGalleryof Art,Washington (Fig.23), had been commissionedby Guido-baldo da Montefeltre,he Duke of Urbino,as a giftto HenryVII of England.' This contentionwas encouragedby theHONI inscribedon the garterworn by St George(Fig.24),

I J. D. PASSAVANT:aphaeld'Urbin et sonpire Giovanni anti [1860], Vol.II,pp.42ff.25


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Saint Georges Raphaël

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