Evidence from conservation research and from historical documents suggests that both aesthetic and devotional motivations were at play, but that the context in which the painting was housed, whether a religious institution or a private gallery, contributed significantly to the response.
He presented Raphael as an extraordinary individual, who was beautiful in appearance, gracious in society and, thus, almost angelic in nature. Vasari extended the comparison of Raphael to an angel when he suggested that his artistic gifts were divinely inspired. However, in practice, many members of the Italian clergy encouraged faith in miracle-working images, and the institution as a whole reaped the benefits of monetary donations left in their honour.
In some instances, the sums were such that new chapels and churches were built to house the paintings. One instance familiar to Raphael was the erection of Sta. He also gives credence to spurious legends and oral traditions. For example, one series of frescoes that was repeatedly described as having spiritual significance was the cycle of fifty-two Biblical narratives on the vault of the Vatican Loggia of Leo X Evidence of the credence given to these representations of divine events by the popes themselves can be found in a collection of engravings issued in by the Roman printer Pietro Paolo Montagnani Fig.
Below the scene in each print a cartouche was inserted with the biblical passage believed to most aptly comment on the imagery. In addition, a decorative title page announced the dedication to the present pope, Pius VI Amor Dei Rome: Montagnani, It was Vasari who faithfully described the circumstances under which the Madonna del Cardellino , painted by Raphael for his friend Lorenzo Nasi in Florence in about , was almost completely destroyed.
In , a landslide from Monte San Giorgio resulted in the destruction of the Nasi palazzo where the Madonna was housed.
