Betrothal of the Virgin Mary (Raphael painting)

“Betrothal of the Virgin Mary” ( Italian: Lo sposalizio della Vergine ) - 1504 Raphael painting from Milan's Pinacoteca Brera . The painting (signed and dated: RAPHAEL URBINAS MDIIII) was purchased by the Albizzini family for the chapel of St. Joseph at the Church of St. Francis of Città di Castello in Umbria . In 1798, it fell into the hands of Napoleonic general Lechi , who sold it to an art dealer in Milan, Sannazzari. In 1804, he bequeathed a painting to the central hospital of Milan. But already in 1806, it was acquired for the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera by Eugene Beauharnais .

Raphael Santi

Betrothal of the Virgin Mary . 1504

Lo sposalizio della vergine

Wood, oil. 174 × 121 cm

Brera , Milan

( Inv. )

The picture refers to the early period of the artist's work, when he was still associated with the workshop of Pietro Perugino . The work of the latter, in particular, his fresco, Key transfer of St. Peter in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican (1481–1482) and the Betrothal of Mary from the Caen Museum of Fine Arts , dating from approx. The years 1500-1504 undoubtedly had a significant impact on the iconography of Raphael’s paintings and on its general compositional solution.

In the foreground is a group of participants in the wedding ceremony: in the center, on the same axis as the Temple, is a priest holding Mary and Joseph in his arms, who is holding out a wedding ring to her. In Joseph’s left hand is a flourished staff, which, according to legend, was a sign of his chosenness sent from above: next to Joseph, one of the rejected suitors breaks his staff in anger. It is curious that, according to the early Christian tradition (recorded, for example, in the apocryphal “The First Gospel of James the Younger” (chap. IX)), Joseph was elected among other applicants according to another wonderful sign: a dove flew out of his staff and sat on his head. Raphael, like Perugino, uses the testimony of St. Jerome , who, in turn, was based on the biblical story of the stick of Aaron blossoming with almond trees (Numbers 17, 8). From the closeness of the words virga - “wand” and virgo - “virgin” in the Middle Ages, the meaning of virgin purity was fixed to almonds , and the tree itself became one of the attributes of Our Lady.

Pietro Perugino . Betrothal Mary

An essential symbolic aspect receives in the picture the motive of the through passage through the temple, through which you can see untouched natural landscapes spreading beyond the square. On the one hand, the light passing through the body of the temple is a symbol of God's blessing of the marriage of Mary and Joseph, on the other hand, the temple turns out to be located on the very border between the human world (indicated by the square filled with people) and the world of untouched nature, and the very combination of these two planes is a symbol the union of two natures in Christ - divine and human.

Despite the fact that Raphael completely repeats the iconographic program of Perugino, artistically, his picture is a significant step forward. His figures are already deprived of archaic constraint, they have less static - even though he uses the same perfectly symmetrical composition, the mathematical accuracy of which only emphasizes the Ideal Temple in the background. The innovation of the language of its architecture - with a light arcade of an ionic order, an ideal hemispherical dome - suggested some researchers to influence Rafael Bramante , who had already built his famous Tempietto by 1502 . However, before moving to Florence, Rafael most likely could not see this building, in addition, the temple depicted in his painting is characterized by a very unconstructive spirit, which was especially evident in the strange curls of volutes, which provide a transition from the crown of columns to the drum of the dome, the complex spiral shape of which too suitable for execution of stone. His temple is primarily a symbol, and only then - a manifesto of new architectural ideas.