Raphael's Letter To Pope Leo X Essay

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Raphael’s letter to Pope Leo X on Architectural drawing

Raphael an Italian painter and Architect of the Renaissance period wrote a letter to Pope Leo X expressing his anger at the state of the ‘great, noble city, once queen of the world’, Rome, as being ‘cruelly butchered’. In the letter Raphael makes clear his dissatisfaction to a number of things that relate to the state the Ancient structures which lay in. He pleads with Pope Leo X to take the issue of protecting these ruins as they were the glory of their ‘founders’ seriously and lashed out on past Pontiffs for failing to defend these Ancient relics but rather invested their time in destroying them. Raphael touches on a lot of issues in his letter to pope Leo X. I will look to summaries what he says regarding …show more content…

Raphael sites this as the reason for the need for perspective drawings to show and explain the appearance of a building. He explained this allowed for the ‘eye to see and judge the grace of that likeness’. Raphael explained this allowed for the ‘beautiful proportion and symmetry’ of the building to be seen and understood more clearly, allowing for people to see what does not appear is the measured architectural drawings. He explains this form of drawing and the impact on the way it is viewed to Pope Leo X. Raphael talks about the way in which the size of walls diminish in perspective due to the normal proportions the eye sees. He explains that ‘the smaller the angle, the smaller the object viewed will appear’ and that this also applies to all other directions a building is viewed from. He however also brings to Pope Leo X attention the detail of the way light acts as a pyramid as it enters our eyes and affects the way we see these features of the building in paintings by