f his own thought so
thoroughly--so completely exhausted the motives of his invention, and
carried his style to such perfection--that he left nothing unused for his
followers. We have seen that he formed a school of subordinates in Rome
who executed his later frescoes after his designs. Some of these men have
names that can be mentioned--Giulio Romano, of whom more hereafter; Perino
del Vaga, the decorator of Genoese palaces in a style of overblown but
gorgeous Raphaelism; Andrea Sabbatini, who carried the Roman tradition
down to Naples; Francesco Penni, Giovanni da Udine, and Polidoro da
Caravaggio. Their work, even while superintended by Raphael himself, began
to show the signs of decadence. In his Roman manner the dramatic element
was conspicuous; and to carry dramatic painting beyond the limits of good
style in art is unfortunately easy. The Hall of Constantine, left
unfinished at his death, still further proved how little his pupils could
do without him.[398] When Raphael died, the breath whose might sustained
and made them potent, ceased. For all the higher purposes of genuine art,
inspiration passed from them as colour fades from eastern clouds at
sunset, suddenly.

It has been customary to account for this rapid decline of the Roman
school by referring to the sack of Rome in 1527. No doubt the artists
suffered at that moment at least as severely as the scholars; their
dispersion broke up a band of eminent painters, who might in combination
and competition have still achieved great things. Yet the secret of their
subsequent failure lay far deeper; partly in the full development of their
master's style, already described; and partly in the social conditions of
Rome itself. Patrons, stimulated by the example of the Popes, desired vast
decorative works; but they expected these to be performed rapidly and at a
cheap rate. Painters, familiarised with the execution of such
undertakings, forgot that hitherto the conception had been not theirs but
Raphael's. Mistaking hand-work for brain-work, they audaciously accepted
commissions that would have taxed the powers of the master himself.
Meanwhile moral earnestness and technical conscientiousness were both
extinct. The patrons required show and sensual magnificence far more than
thought and substance. They were not, therefore, deterred by the vacuity
and poor conceptive faculty of the artists from employing them. What the
age demanded was a sumptuous parade of superficial o