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More on Raphael

Giulio Romano

Probably born in the mid-1490s in Rome, Giulio joined Raphael's workshop around 1516 and rapidly became his most trusted assistant. He and Raphael, however, had different artistic personalities and after Raphael's death, Giulio rapidly moved towards a more expressive and mannered style. Having inherited joint control of Raphael's workshop, Giulio soon found himself as pressured as Raphael had been, and in 1524 he accepted employment at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. Giulio's primary role there was as a designer. He rarely worked as a painter, and his projects were mainly executed by assistants following his drawings. The attraction of his drawings lies in the fertility of Giulio's imagination and the panache of his pen-work. He enjoyed an artistic monopoly in Mantua for two decades until his death in 1546. The many prints made from his designs ensured a fame as great as Raphael's throughout Europe.

Perino del Vaga

Born in Florence in 1501, Perino moved to Rome around 1516 and entered Raphael's workshop, apparently as an assistant on the Vatican loggia. After Raphael's death, Perino worked independently of the studio but retained a strong connection with it. He quickly established himself as a fresco specialist, executing paintings in the Vatican and Palazzo Baldassini in collaboration with Polidoro da Caravaggio. Perino left for Genoa during the 1527 Sack of Rome, but returned to a recovered Rome by 1538. His status as an heir of the heroic Raphael helped him obtain new commissions. Work for Pope Paul III in the Vatican and in the Castel Sant'Angelo established Perino as the leading decorative painter in Rome, controlling a studio approaching the size and complexity of Raphael's thirty years earlier. His biographer Vasari attributed his death in 1547 to overwork.

Polidoro da Caravaggio

Born around 1499 in northern Italy, Polidoro moved to Rome around 1515 and was probably first engaged in Raphael's workshop in 1517. After Raphael's death, Polidoro soon began to specialise in painting friezes on Roman palace façades with his partner Maturino. After the Sack of Rome in 1527, when Maturino was killed, Polidoro went first to Naples and then to Sicily. Isolated from the artistic developments in central and northern Italy, his drawing and painting style developed into an individual, expressive idiom totally opposed to Raphael's rationalism. Polidoro was allegedly murdered in 1543 by an assistant for the savings that he had withdrawn to return to Rome.