Below is a copy of the newsletter I sent to my followers earlier today.
Dear family, friends, readers, & art lovers,
Lately, this newsletter has been filled with colorful photos, lots of links, and exclamation points, but today, I want to do something a little different.
You see, this coming Monday, April 6th, is the 500th anniversary of the death of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known to most as simply Raphael.
This beloved artist died on April 6th, 1520, at the age of 37. (To the right is a self-portrait of the artist from just before he died.)
When my Raphael novel was scheduled to come out on April 7th, the day immediately after this anniversary, I thought it would be a day of celebration all over the world. Rome would be hosting a mega-exhibition of his work; his hometown of Urbino had a year of parties planned; and yes, I was going on book tour...
But as we all know, the last few weeks have changed all of that. The mega-exhibition's doors shuttered after only a few days; it may or may not reopen. Italy has fared worse than other countries and has been on lockdown for weeks; citizens sing from balconies, but museums are necessarily empty. And I'm not the only author with book tours -- and dreams -- cancelled.
During his lifetime -- and for hundreds of years after his death -- Raphael was one of the most famous and beloved artists in all of history, one the triumvirate of the Renaissance along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. But somehow, even though we all still know his name, his impact has faded a bit recently. Today, you're more likely to know him as a Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle than one of the most important artists in history. I guess Michelangelo's angst and Leonardo's eccentricities capture our contemporary imaginations more than Raphael's seemingly easy life and perfect pictures.
Over the last few weeks, countless friends have reached out, concerned that I'm brokenhearted about my canceled book tour. And I am sad about it, but I've been much more sad that Raphael's moment -- this anniversary celebration that was supposed to catapult him back into the forefront of our imaginations and remind us how he changed the way we ALL see the world -- was cancelled. I'd been waiting for a Renaissance of Raphael; but it, too, has been shut down by this modern-day plague.
Raphael's life was short and brilliant... and sad. He was orphaned at age 11, left alone with no immediate family. During his lifetime, the Italian peninsula was consumed by war and disease. He was a notorious playboy, but never married. He had no children... He died young without re-claiming a family.
Raphael easily could've been consumed by sadness, anger and fear...
But he wasn't.
Instead he was consumed by beauty. He didn't paint pictures of angst and death. No. He painted picture after picture after picture of beauty.
It didn't matter how much he struggled or how much sadness surrounded him, Raphael just kept throwing more beauty at the world... and he never stopped, not until the day he died.
So maybe -- in some cosmic way -- it's not tragic that the anniversary of Raphael's LIFE falls the middle of this global pandemic. Maybe it's the ultimate gift to us because Raphael -- more than any artist in history -- has the power to remind us all that, even in the face of fear and sadness, we must never stop trying to bend the world toward beauty.
Stephanie Storey