An Other Raphael
The Artist and Authority
Published on 20. April 2026
Book
Hardback
390 pages
978-1-0364-6588-9 (ISBN)
Description
In the study of Pope Julius II, the famous Renaissance artist Raphael (1483-1520) began his Roman career c.1509 with frescoes celebrating four major fields of knowledge (Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Law). In his assembly of philosophers, the "School of Athens," an image of apparent cosmic and philosophical harmony, Raphael included little-noticed motifs of discord, even disruption, in juxtapositions that are echoed throughout his career. The erudition evident in this and related frescoes suggests personal engagement with classical texts, not least for the mechanics of composition in the rhetorical tradition and for authors' reflections on their craft and situation. The diversity of means of expression within Raphael's works recurs throughout his career, in which he crossed professional, social, and medial boundaries, from painting on walls to prints on paper. Notably, his late explorations in grotesque decoration embody his typical inventive flair while marking continuity with his earlier expressions of an aesthetics of fragmentation and combination.
More details
Edition
Unabridged edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Newcastle upon Tyne
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Unabridged edition
Product notice
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 212 mm
Width: 148 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-0364-6588-9 (9781036465889)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
As a student of Classics at the University of Oxford and of the Classical Tradition at the Warburg Institute of London University, both UK, Charles Burroughs encountered emphatically inter-disciplinary programs. His early publications on urban and social history in Renaissance Rome relied on extensive archival research, though influenced by semiotic theory and the anthropological approach of J.P. Vernant and the French school of Classical Studies. After work in architectural history ranging from Michelangelo's project at the Roman Campidoglio to a book on the idea of the facade in Italian Renaissance palace design, Burroughs turned to issues in the study of Michelangelo (article on the Last Judgement) and Botticelli (several articles and a book in process). He has also published on plantation architecture in the Americas, especially Alexander Hamilton's house in New York. A constant interest is the nature and background of artistic inventiveness; this led perhaps inevitably to the supremely inventive and versatile Raphael.