The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1883-04-25
From our Regular Correspondent
ROME LETTER.
ROME. April 3. 1889

ROME, April =, 1000
sunny Italy" has had. during
the last two or three years, consid-
erably less sunshine and a great deal
more rain .han are ia accordance
with the traditions of the climate OF
that beautiful land, and the inclem-
emf weather threatened to spoil the
popular enjoyment of the festivities
held in Rome to commemorate the
four hundredth anniversary of the
birth of Rafaelle. The inscription
on the tomb in the Pantheon of the
iliustrious painter, written by Car
dinal Bembo, states that the day OF
Rafaell's birth was also that of his
death. and the day in question was
the 9th of April. The Romans,
however, have doubtless very good
reasons for keeping the anniversary
on the 18th of March, and it is suffi-
Gent for the world to be certain that
the great artist died in 1920, and
that he had lived, as the epitaph
states. thirty-seven years "integer
integros." The celebration at Rome
seems to have been bright and JOY
Gus enough to console the great army
of sight-seers for having been affiict-
ed with the dullest carnival and the
coolest Lent that have been known
in the capital Of Italy for many
e ; while the Rafaelle commem-
Grafton was in Its every aspect pleas
antly characteristic of the people Of
the eternal city, who have by no
means lost their ancient appetite for
/" bread and shows although when
ugly rumors of the Roman fever
frightened away the foreign visitors,
the poorer Romans occasionally ex-
perience some difficulty in obtain
ing an adequate supply of the staff
of life. The festival, moreover, was
one in which Liberals and c~lericals
could join with equal heartlnes.
Rafaelle was a painter and a poet.
but he does not seem TO have had
any politics at all. He died on the
very best terms with the church.
The Pope had given him the
benediclion on his death-bed, and
he was engaged in marriage to
the niece of Cardinal Bibiena, al
though some of his biographies
have stated that the painter was
averse from wedding Maria Bibiena
because Pope Leo Y. had promised
TO bestow on him a Cardinals hat.
For the Prince of Painters to be
raised to the dignity OF a Prince OF
the Church would have been an an
exampled honor bestowed on art.
But il was not 10 be. Rafaelle, like
Byron, died at thirty-seven, and as
tonishingly full ofrenown as was his
brief career. very little is known
of the individual man. That he
painted a vast number of wonderful
pictures; that he was personally
handsome; that he left his wealth,
after the endowment OF a chapel, to
his pupils and friends, and that he
was the companion of princes. these
few facts have been nearly all that,
until a very recent period, his biog-
raphers have had to work upon.
The learned Passavant. however,
discovered more ample materials for
the painters life ; and still more re-
cent writers have striven, and are
striving, further to develop our
knowledge of a personality of which
it may, without exaggeration, be
said that il has grown dark from
excess OF light" In the blaze OF
glory which surrounds the master
who produced the TRANSPORTATION"
and the "Spasimo di Sicilia," the
man Rafaelle has hitherto been only
family visible. From the church Of
st. Genevieve, in Paris, protrudes a
brazen hand, brandishing a flaming
torch. 1t is the.tomb of Jean Jacques
Rousseau /; and the torch ofthe citi-
zen of Geneva is supposed TO be
Ttill enlightening the world. A
brighter and a purer light, however,
streams from the tomb of Rafaelle
Sanzio. 1t is the light of that beau.
w, the knowledge of which his
short but glorious life was spent
in intoxicating of that beauty which
is the inseparable handmade Of
Truth.