Semmes, Raphael, 1809-77, American naval officer, b. Charles co., Md. He took part in the Mexican War, practiced law at Mobile, Ala., and was in the Lighthouse Service from 1856 to Feb., 1861, when he resigned his commission as commander. He soon took the same rank in the Confederate navy. His first ship, the Sumter, did considerable damage to Northern commerce before she was bottled up at Gibraltar in Jan., 1862. In Aug., 1862, Semmes, now a captain, took command of the Alabama (see Confederate cruisers), and a two-year cruise made him the naval hero of the Confederacy. After the Alabama was sunk by the Kearsarge, Semmes returned to the South. He was promoted to rear admiral (Feb., 1865) and charged with the naval defense of Richmond.

Sanzio, Raphael: see Raphael Santi.

Raphael Santi or Raphael Sanzio, Ital. Raffaello Santi or Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520, major Italian Renaissance painter, b. Urbino. In Raphael's work is the clearest expression of the exquisite harmony and balance of High Renaissance composition.

Early Training, Influence, and Work

Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, painter at the court of Federigo Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, first taught him the elements of art. About six years after the death of his father (1494) he entered the workshop of Perugino, whose influence is seen in The Crucifixion and The Knight's Dream (both: National Gall., London); Coronation of the Virgin (Vatican); The Three Graces (Chantilly); and the Sposalizio (Brera, Milan). The Colonna altarpiece, representing the Madonna and Saints (Metropolitan Mus.), marks the end of the Perugian period of his work.

The five predella scenes, Agony in the Garden (Metropolitan Mus.), St. Anthony of Padua and St. Francis (both: Dulwich), Procession to Calvary (National Gall., London), and Pietà (Gardner Mus., Boston), give evidence of the new influences of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Masaccio, and, especially, Fra Bartolomeo. Studying the intricacies of anatomy, perspective, and coloring, he achieved a freer, more able, and deeper interpretation than was seen in his earlier work. In Florence (1504-8) he produced numerous Madonnas that are renowned for their sweetness of expression. His self-portrait (Uffizi) and the penetrating portraits of Angelo and Maddalena Doni (Pitti Palace) are also from this period.

Mature Work

At Rome his style matured, benefiting from Michelangelo's influence. In the Vatican, Raphael was wholly responsible for the Stanza della Segnatura (finished 1511); the two largest walls represent, respectively, the School of Athens, portraying the Greek philosophers, and the Triumph of Religion, also called Disputà. On the vault are The Flaying of Marsyas and The Temptation of Eve. The ceiling is devoted to the allegorical figures Law, Philosophy, Poetry, and Theology. Two large lunettes over the windows represent Parnassus and Jurisprudence.

In the Stanza d'Eliodoro Raphael painted (1511-14) The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, The Miracle of Bolsena, The Repulse of Attila from Rome by Leo I, and The Deliverance of St. Peter. He also designed the Incendio del Borgo and painted part of it. Other designs for the Vatican include The Battle of Ostia, The Oath of Leo III before Charlemagne, and The Victory of Constantine over Maxentius; the 52 religious subjects covering one ceiling and known as "Raphael's Bible" were executed by his pupils after his design.

Among the other paintings of his Roman period are the Madonna with the Fish (Prado); Madonna of the Chair (Pitti Palace); the Sistine Madonna (Dresden); Galatea (Farnesina); the Alba Madonna (National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.); and the unfinished Transfiguration, completed by Giulio Romano. Portraits of that period include Julius II, long his patron; Baldassare Castiglione (Louvre); Tommaso Inghirami (Gardner Mus., Boston); and Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals.

Other Works and Accomplishments

Having been named (1514) successor to Bramante as chief architect of the Vatican, Raphael also designed a number of churches, palaces, and mansions. For his patron, Leo X, he undertook (1518) a survey of ancient Rome showing the chief monuments. He also designed ten tapestries with themes from the Acts of the Apostles for the Sistine Chapel; seven of the designs are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Raphael was deeply indebted to the sculpture of antiquity for his mythological and biblical figures, and in his interpretation of classical art he achieved a harmony and monumentality emulated far into the 19th cent.

Raphael, archangel. He is prominent in the book of Tobit, as the companion of Tobias, as the healer of Tobit, and as the rescuer of Sara from Asmodeus. Milton made him a featured character of Paradise Lost. Feast: Sept. 29 (jointly with the other archangels).

Mengs, Anton Raphael, 1728-79, German historical and portrait painter, b. Bohemia. He was the pupil of his father, Ismael Mengs (c.1688-1764), a Dresden miniaturist who took him to Italy in 1741. Anton was appointed Dresden court painter in 1749. Influenced by the theories of Winckelmann, he became the leading light of the neoclassical movement. His major works include Parnassus (1761; Villa Albani, Rome) and Apotheosis of Trajan (Madrid), which he created as court painter to Charles III of Spain. His portrait of Johann Joachim Winckelmann is in the Metropolitan Museum. Mengs was also an important theoretician.

Holinshed, Raphael, d. c.1580, English chronicler. He was a translator who also assisted Reginald Wolfe in the preparation of a universal history, which was never finished. In 1577, four years after Wolfe's death, appeared Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which he wrote with the assistance of William Harrison and Richard Stanihurst. Many Elizabethan dramatists drew plots for plays from the book in this and later editions. Shakespeare used it for several plays, especially Macbeth, King Lear, and Cymbeline.

Hirsch, Samson Raphael, 1808-88, German rabbi and chief exponent of Neo-Orthodoxy. As rabbi in Frankfurt-am-Main, he advocated the organization of autonomous Orthodox congregations outside the state-recognized Jewish communal structure because of the latter's failure to support traditional ideals and practices. He was not an isolationist, however; he sought to combine traditional Jewish studies with secular learning. He first promoted that notion in his Nineteen Letters (1836, tr. 1899). He maintained in Horeb (1837, tr. 1962) that the reason for the Jews' existence was—in keeping with biblical teachings—to exemplify the righteous life for all the world as revealed by God. He further saw Judaism as an organic institution and condemned the breaks in tradition advocated by the Reform movement.

Cohen, Morris Raphael, 1880-1947, American philosopher, b. Minsk, Russia, grad. College of the City of New York, 1900, Ph.D. Harvard, 1906. He emigrated to the United States in 1892. At first an instructor in mathematics at the College of the City of New York, Cohen transferred to the department of philosophy, where he taught from 1912 until 1938, becoming famous for his use of Socratic irony. He then taught at the Univ. of Chicago until 1942. His influence, through his students and his books, has been far-reaching, and he is considered one of the most important American philosophers since William James. Cohen's most important books are Reason and Nature (1931, rev. ed. 1953) and Law and the Social Order (1933). Other works include A Preface to Logic (1944), The Faith of a Liberal (1945), and American Thought: A Critical Sketch (1954).

(born Sept. 27, 1809, Charles county, Md., U.S.—died Aug. 30, 1877, Mobile, Ala.) U.S. naval officer. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1826, and in the Mexican War he commanded the naval landing at Veracruz. A resident of Alabama, he resigned his commission in 1861 and was appointed a commander in the Confederate navy. He captured 17 Union merchant ships before assuming command of the English-made Alabama in 1862. On numerous raids he captured, sank, or burned 82 Union ships, disrupting Union commerce. In 1864 he was defeated in a battle with the Union ship Kearsarge in the English Channel, but he escaped capture. After the war he practiced law. Seealso Alabama claims.

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(born June 20, 1808, Hamburg—died Dec. 31, 1888, Frankfurt-on-Main, Ger.) German Jewish scholar. He served as rabbi in Oldenburg, Emden, Nikolsburg, and Frankfurt am Main. In his Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel (1836), he expounded his system of Neo-Orthodoxy, which helped make Orthodox Judaism viable in 19th-century Germany. He advocated blending strict schooling in the Torah with modern secular education, and he argued that Orthodox Jews should separate from the larger Jewish community in defense of their traditions. His many works include commentaries on the Pentateuch and an Orthodox textbook on Judaism.

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(born Sept. 27, 1809, Charles county, Md., U.S.—died Aug. 30, 1877, Mobile, Ala.) U.S. naval officer. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1826, and in the Mexican War he commanded the naval landing at Veracruz. A resident of Alabama, he resigned his commission in 1861 and was appointed a commander in the Confederate navy. He captured 17 Union merchant ships before assuming command of the English-made Alabama in 1862. On numerous raids he captured, sank, or burned 82 Union ships, disrupting Union commerce. In 1864 he was defeated in a battle with the Union ship Kearsarge in the English Channel, but he escaped capture. After the war he practiced law. Seealso Alabama claims.

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(died circa 1580) English chronicler. From circa 1560 Holinshed lived in London, where he was employed as a translator by Reginald Wolfe, who was preparing a universal history. Holinshed is remembered for his Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande (1577), an abridged history he published after Wolfe's death, compiled largely uncritically from many sources of varying degrees of trustworthiness. It enjoyed great popularity and was quarried by Elizabethan dramatists, especially William Shakespeare, who drew on its second edition (1587) for Macbeth, King Lear, Cymbeline, and many of his historical plays.

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orig. Raffaello Sanzio

(born April 6, 1483, Urbino, Duchy of Urbino—died April 6, 1520, Rome, Papal States) Italian painter and architect. As a member of Perugino's workshop, he established his mastery by 17 and began receiving important commissions. In 1504 he moved to Florence, where he executed many of his famous Madonnas; his unity of composition and suppression of inessentials is evident in The Madonna of the Goldfinch (circa 1506). Though influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's chiaroscuro and sfumato, his figure types were his own creation, with round, gentle faces that reveal human sentiments raised to a sublime serenity. In 1508 he was summoned to Rome to decorate a suite of papal chambers in the Vatican. The frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura are probably his greatest work; the most famous, The School of Athens (1510–11), is a complex and magnificently ordered allegory of secular knowledge showing Greek philosophers in an architectural setting. The Madonnas he painted in Rome show him turning away from his earlier work's serenity to emphasize movement and grandeur, partly under Michelangelo's High Renaissance influence. The Sistine Madonna (1513) shows the richness of colour and new boldness of compositional invention typical of his Roman period. He became the most important portraitist in Rome, designed 10 large tapestries to hang in the Sistine Chapel, designed a church and a chapel, assumed the direction of work on St. Peter's Basilica at the death of Donato Bramante, and took charge of virtually all the papacy's projects in architecture, painting, and the preservation of antiquities. When he died on his 37th birthday, his last masterpiece, the Transfiguration altarpiece, was placed at the head of his bier.

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(born March 22, 1728, Aussig, Bohemia—died June 29, 1779, Rome, Papal States) German painter. After study in Dresden and Rome, he became painter to the Saxon court in Dresden in 1745. Back in Rome in the late 1740s and again in the early 1750s, he developed an enthusiasm for Classical antiquity. His fresco Parnassus (1760–61) at the Villa Albani helped establish the ascendancy of Neoclassical painting. He also worked extensively for the Spanish court in Madrid. He was regarded as Europe's greatest living painter in his day, but his reputation has since declined.

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(died circa 1580) English chronicler. From circa 1560 Holinshed lived in London, where he was employed as a translator by Reginald Wolfe, who was preparing a universal history. Holinshed is remembered for his Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande (1577), an abridged history he published after Wolfe's death, compiled largely uncritically from many sources of varying degrees of trustworthiness. It enjoyed great popularity and was quarried by Elizabethan dramatists, especially William Shakespeare, who drew on its second edition (1587) for Macbeth, King Lear, Cymbeline, and many of his historical plays.

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(born June 20, 1808, Hamburg—died Dec. 31, 1888, Frankfurt-on-Main, Ger.) German Jewish scholar. He served as rabbi in Oldenburg, Emden, Nikolsburg, and Frankfurt am Main. In his Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel (1836), he expounded his system of Neo-Orthodoxy, which helped make Orthodox Judaism viable in 19th-century Germany. He advocated blending strict schooling in the Torah with modern secular education, and he argued that Orthodox Jews should separate from the larger Jewish community in defense of their traditions. His many works include commentaries on the Pentateuch and an Orthodox textbook on Judaism.

Learn more about Hirsch, Samson Raphael with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born March 22, 1728, Aussig, Bohemia—died June 29, 1779, Rome, Papal States) German painter. After study in Dresden and Rome, he became painter to the Saxon court in Dresden in 1745. Back in Rome in the late 1740s and again in the early 1750s, he developed an enthusiasm for Classical antiquity. His fresco Parnassus (1760–61) at the Villa Albani helped establish the ascendancy of Neoclassical painting. He also worked extensively for the Spanish court in Madrid. He was regarded as Europe's greatest living painter in his day, but his reputation has since declined.

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