The diplomatic visit of Italy’s Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli continues in New York, where he arrived yesterday. Among his engagements, he laid a wreath at the monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus at Columbus Circle, accompanied by a brief official ceremony, before finalizing the acquisition of Antonello da Messina’s Ecce Homo at Sotheby’s.
Following these meetings, on the evening of the same day, the minister attended the افتتاحion of the exhibition Raphael: Sublime Poetry at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world’s leading museum institutions. The exhibition brings together more than 200 works, including drawings, paintings, tapestries, and decorative arts objects, with loans from major international institutions and private collections. The display follows Raphael Sanzio’s career in both thematic and chronological order, from his early training at the court of Urbino to his Roman years, when he became a central figure in artistic production tied to papal commissions.
Speaking to journalists, the minister emphasized the broader significance of the initiative: “the research and contributions of the most important Italian museums for an exhibition that, in the year marking the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence, places Raphael at its center. Italy offers an extraordinary historical and artistic contribution to an exhibition that includes works from private collections and major museums worldwide. This makes it even more meaningful that Raphael represents this important moment for Italian culture and the special relationship between Italy and the United States.”
Giuli also highlighted a less frequently discussed aspect of Raphael’s legacy: his organizational and entrepreneurial abilities. In his view, the artist was not only the creator of iconic works but also a figure capable of structuring a complex workshop, managing major commissions, and building a productive network that can be seen today as a proto-industrial model of artistic creation—an approach that, in some ways, resonates with the idea of the American Dream.
“Raphael was an exceptionally capable man: he founded a school, created a refined and harmonious artistic language, but also lived a life of considerable wealth and worked with important patrons, including private bankers such as Agostino Chigi. He built a cultural legacy for himself, and a lasting material and immaterial wealth for all those who continue to admire his work.”
The exhibition will be open to the public from March 29 to June 28 and, as noted, will be the first major international loan exhibition in the United States dedicated to Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520), widely regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time.
Among the key masterpieces on display are Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John in a Landscape (Alba Madonna) from the National Gallery of Art—an emblematic example of Raphael’s mastery of harmony and classical beauty in the High Renaissance—presented alongside preparatory drawings from the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, and the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione from the Louvre, widely considered one of the finest portraits of the High Renaissance.
Despite dying at just 37, Raphael achieved extraordinary success as a painter, designer, and architect, and for centuries after his death was regarded as the pinnacle of artistic perfection. The son of a painter and poet, he engaged with leading writers and thinkers of his time in Rome, demonstrating a poetic sensibility that captivated both contemporaries and later generations. Combining ambition with lyricism, he produced works of significant intellectual depth and emotional complexity, qualities essential in the intricate political landscape of Renaissance courts.
Italian lending institutions include, among others: Accademia Carrara (Bergamo), Galleria Borghese (Rome), Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini (Rome), Galleria Nazionale delle Marche (Urbino), Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria (Perugia), Fondazione Brescia Musei (Brescia), Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte (Naples), Pinacoteca Comunale di Città di Castello, Pinacoteca Nazionale (Bologna), the Uffizi Galleries (Florence), and the Vatican Museums.
