Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/223

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RAPHAEL RAPIN 207 Vatican, but are so injured and faded that the general effect of the coloring is destroyed. Raphael also furnished the designs, but not the cartoons, for a second series of ten tapes- tries which are now in the Vatican. Amid these great undertakings he did not neglect the subjects which had first inspired his pen- cil, and the numerous Madonnas and holy fam- ilies produced during his residence in Rome include some of the most characteristic and admirable of his works. Distinguished among them is the wonderful Madonna di San Si&to (painted between 1517 and 1520) in the Dres- den gallery, representing the Virgin standing in a majestic attitude with the child in her arms. It is said to have been painted at once on the canvas, without any preliminary study, and has been engraved in a style not unwor- thy of the original by Friedrich Muller. Other celebrated Madonnas of this period are the Al- dobrandini Madonna, in the possession of Lord Garvagh, that known as the Bridgewater, the Vierge au diademe in the Louvre, the lovely Madonna delta sedia or seggiola in the Pitti palace, the Madonna di Foligno in the Vatican, that called the "Pearl" at Madrid, and the Madonna del pesce in the Escurial, the two last mentioned being altarpieces with saints assembled around the Virgin. Of several of these duplicates exist, and all of them have been repeatedly engraved. Among his remain- ing easel pictures are the St. Cecilia, now in Bologna; the " Archangel Michael overcoming the Devil," in the Louvre; "Christ bearing the Cross," known as Lo spasimo di Sicilia, in Madrid ; and his last, and by many considered his grandest work, the " Transfiguration," in the Vatican, painted in competition with Se- bastian del Piombo's "Raising of Lazarus," of which Michel Angelo is said to have furnished the design. He executed upward of 80 por- traits, the most famous being those of Julius II. and Leo X., the originals of both of which are in Florence, Cardinals Bibbiena, Bembo, de' Medici, and de' Rossi, Joanna of Aragon, and the " Fornarina," which was long supposed to represent one of his mistresses, but which Passavant considers to be the portrait of a cele- brated improvjsatrice named Beatrice Pio. The last named picture is in the Barberini palace in Rome. To this list of works must be added the fresco of " Cupid and Psyche " in the villa Farnesina, and numerous drawings in chalk, from which the engraver, Marc' Antonio Rai- mondi, executed several of his finest plates. Raphael also directed the construction of St. Peter's from his own plans subsequent to the death of Bramante in 1514, besides executing several other architectural works ; and he made at least one statue in marble, besides designing others. He died of a fever caught in super- intending some subterranean excavations, and was buried in the Pantheon, near the remains of Maria di Bibbiena, niece of the cardinal of that name, to whom he had been betrothed. Through some doubt as to the place of his 698 VOL. xiv. 14 sepulture, his remains were exhumed in Sep- tember, 1833, and on Oct. 18 reinterred with great ceremony. Of his private character Mrs. Jameson says: "There was a vulgar idea at one time prevalent that Raphael was a man of vicious and depraved habits, and even died a victim to his excesses; this slander has been silenced for ever by indisputable evidence to the contrary, and we may now reflect with pleasure that nothing rests on surer evidence than the admirable qualities of Raphael ; that no earthly renown was ever so unsullied by re- proach, so justified by merit, so confirmed by concurrent opinion, so established by time." His life has been written by Quatrernere de Quincy (Paris, 1824); by Passavant (3 vols., Leipsic, 1839-'58); by Baron von Wollzogen (1865; English translation by F. E. Bunnett, London, 1866) ; and more briefly by Mrs. Jame- son in her " Memoirs of the early Italian Painters." See also Kugler's "Handbook of Italian Schools." The house at Urbino where Raphael was born was purchased in 1874 for 22,000 francs by the Raffaello academy, and is to be restored and used as a museum. K A I'll) AX, a river of Virginia, rising in the Blue Ridge mountains. It flows first S. and then E., forming the boundary between Greene and Orange counties on the right and Madison and Culpeper counties on the left, and emp- ties into the Rappahannock about 10 m. above Fredericksburg. Its length is about 80 m. RAPIDES, a W. parish of Louisiana, bounded N. E. by Little river, and intersected by the Red and Calcasieu rivers; area, about 2,000 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 18,015, of whom 10,267 were colored, since which a portion has been taken to form Vernon parish. The surface is nearly level and the soil generally fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 261,579 bushels of Indian corn, 54,276 of sweet potatoes, 9,133 bales of cotton, 8,868 Ibs. of wool, 3,324 hhds. of sugar, and 212,860 galls, of molasses. There were 2,225 horses, 1,976 mules and asses, 3,748 milch cows, 1,218 working oxen, 9,259 other cattle, 3,848 sheep, and 14,724 swine; 18 establishments for the manufacture of sugar, and 1 saw mill. Capital, Alexandria. RAPIN, Paul de, sieur de Thoyras, a French historian, born in Castres, March 25, 1661, died in Wesel, May 16, 1725. He became an advo- cate, but turned his attention to arms and lit- erature. Being a Protestant, he went to Eng- land on the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685), and afterward to Holland, where he joined a company of French cadets, and fol- lowed the prince of Orange (William III.) to England. He was at the battle of the Boyne, and was wounded in the siege of Limerick. He afterward became tutor of the young duke of Portland, and in 1707 settled in Wesel on the Rhine. His most important work is his Uistoire d? Angleterre (9 vols. 4to, the Hague, 1724), in which the narration of events is car- ried down to the death of Charles I. It was translated and continued by N. Tindal, and has