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his works, Bramante, as well as Raphael, may have been indebted for a knowledge of the rudiments of architecture; Pietro della Francesca, whose compositions on mathematics and geometry enriched the ducal library, was domiciliated with Giovanni Sanzio; Lucian, a painter and architect of Dalmatia, superintended for a time the building of the castle; but the most remarkable guest was Justus van Ghent, called by the Italians Giusto da Guanto; a considerable work painted by him contained portraits of the Duke Federigo and his successor Guid' Ubaldo, under whose auspices again the talents of the celebrated Luca Signorelli were put in requisition. Pictures by most of these artists probably still exist at Urbino, and undoubtedly were seen and studied by Raphael in his early youth. Among the first reputed works of the great artist himself, which are preserved in his native city, may be mentioned a Madonna, originally painted on the wall in his father's house, and a holy family on wood in the church of S. Andrea.

It is difficult to fix with precision the time when Raphael first studied under Perugino; but if, as Rumohr supposes, that painter only settled finally at Perugia about 1500, his distinguished scholar must have joined him at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and not some years earlier, as has been generally assumed. Even at this age it is sufficiently wonderful that the scholar should have been fitted to select the best qualities in his master's style, and indeed very soon to improve upon them.

Besides the works which his native city contained, Raphael doubtless had had opportunities of seeing the productions of Andrea Luigi di Assisi, called Ingegno, of Niccolò di Fuligno, and other painters of the school of Umbria. Their robust style of colour, which was somewhat modified by Perugino and Pinturicchio, is occasionally to be traced in Raphael's early works. There was another quality which Perugino, in his best time, possessed in common with other painters of his province, and which may be said generally to characterize the school of Umbria. This was an intensity of expression in sacred subjects indicating a deep religious feeling; and it is so striking in the best productions of the artist last named, that it has been considered sufficient of itself to prove the orthodoxy of his creed, which Vasari had called in question. The impulse was probably derived from Assisi, where some of the earliest Italian masters had left specimens of their powers, and the source was the doctrine of St. Francis. The history and legends of this saint (who died in 1226), frequently exercised the pencil of the early Italians, even to the danger of causing Bible subjects to be neglected, from the time of Giotto to

that of Angelico da Fiesole: but the chief influence on the school above-mentioned is apparent rather in the treatment than in the subject; it is to be recognised in a certain subdued earnestness of expression, allied to the severe tenets of the saint of Assisi, and exhibiting religion rather in its suffering than in its triumphant character. This tendency received an additional impulse from the works which Taddeo di Bartolo of Siena had left in Perugia and other parts of Umbria early in the fifteenth century. The painters most remarkable for the quality alluded to were Niccolò Alunno, called Niccolò di Fuligno, and Pietro Perugino; but the same feeling had extended itself to Francia in Bologna. The taste of the Florentine painters on the other hand, with the single exception of Angelico da Fiesole, had long taken another direction: their pictures of this time abound in portraits; the saints and Madonnas of the school, those for instance of Domenico Ghirlandajo, seem to have been taken from common nature, and are seldom inspired with that sanctity of expression so frequent and so remarkable in the painters above-named. In later times, the painters of the various Italian schools, who were supposed to copy nature with too little selection, were called naturalisti, and, at the period alluded to, Florence may be considered comparatively the seat of this kind of imitation; a tendency greatly owing, it appears, to the introduction of early Flemish pictures, in which portraits were frequent, and in which the back-ground and accessories were treated with an attention new to the Italian painters.

Thus it cannot but be considered among the greatest of Raphael's advantages, that he had opportunities of studying in both the schools alluded to; and in both, he of all men knew or felt what was fittest to be imitated. The depth and fervour of expression which he imbibed from the masters he first contemplated, and which he never relinquished, was improved and enlivened by the accurate study of the forms and varieties of nature to which the Florentines were devoted: again, before Raphael arrived in Florence, Lionardo da Vinci had laid the foundation of that profound anatomical knowledge, the only true means of representing action, which was afterwards carried to its greatest results in the works of Michael Angelo. The celebrated Cartoons of both these great designers were the object of study and admiration in Florence at the time Raphael resided there, although they were not completed quite so soon as might be inferred from a passage in Vasari. The importance of considering and accounting for the earliest tendency of Raphael's feeling, will be apparent when we remember that it reappeared in his later, and even in his latest, works. The

Dispute of the Sacrament, his altar-pieces, and even the Cartoons, are not Florentine in their taste, but are rather allied to the school from which he derived his first impressions.

From 1500, or perhaps a little earlier, to 1504-5, Raphael was employed at Perugia, or at Città di Castello (a township midway between Perugia and Urbino); his works in the latter place must, however, have been executed after he became a pupil of Perugino, as they clearly evince an imitation of that painter's manner. An altarpiece, originally in the church of S. Niccola di Tolentino, at Città di Castello, is now in the Vatican; a Crucifixion from the church of S. Domenico, in the same place, is in the Fesch collection at Rome; and the celebrated Marriage of the Virgin, from the church of S. Francesco, is at Milan. The last, which was copied almost without alteration from a painting of Perugino, has the date 1504, and immediately precedes Raphael's first visit to Florence.

The works done by Raphael in Perugia were much more numerous, to say nothing of his assistance in pictures which pass for Perugino's. Among his own may be mentioned an Assumption of the Virgin, now in the Vatican, as well as another picture of the same subject begun by Raphael, but finished, not till after his death, by his scholars. The fresco, in the cloister of S. Severo, at Perugia, which resembles the upper part of the Disputa (to be hereafter mentioned), has the date 1505; the lower part was finished by Perugino when very old, after Raphael's death. The style of this fresco bespeaks an acquaintance with higher examples of art than Perugia contained; it was probably done after a first visit to Florence. The interesting picture at Blenheim, mentioned by Vasari as having been painted for the chapel Degli Ansidei, in the church De' Servi at Perugia, has the date 1505; it may be considered to be the last example of Raphael's imitation of Perugino, and to mark the transition from that imitation to the Florentine manner.

While Raphael was studying at Perugia, Pinturicchio, a native of that place, and an assistant of Perugino, was employed to paint some subjects relating to the Life of Pius II., in the library, now the sacristy, of the Duomo at Siena. Vasari relates, not without contradicting himself in the separate lives of Raphael and Pinturicchio, that the latter availed himself of his young friend's skill in composition, in engaging him to design the whole series of subjects; he further adds, that Raphael accompanied Pinturicchio to Siena, but left him to proceed to Florence, in order to see the Cartoons of Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Vinci. The works in the sacristy at Siena appear to

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have been done before the death of Pius III., in 1503: at that time the Cartoons in question were not completed (M. Angelo's was not finished and publicly shown before 1506, Vinci's not much earlier); and as we have before seen, Raphael was employed at Città di Castello in 1504, probably before he had seen Florence at all. It is however certain that Raphael made some designs for Pinturicchio, since two small compositions, almost identical with the frescoes at Siena, and other separate studies by his hand exist, although various reasons, too long to adduce here, render it extremely improbable that he was ever employed at Siena. The vast number of works which this great man executed in his very short life, make it sufficiently difficult to assign time enough for the production of those that are undoubted.

The amiable character, as well as the extraordinary talents of Raphael, soon procured him the notice and admiration of the Florentine artists. Among his chief friends were Taddeo Gaddi (in return for whose hospitality he probably painted the Madonna del Gran Duca and the Madonna Tempi), Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, and Fra Bartolommeo. It would be impossible here to give a list of the works which he executed during his residence in Florence from 1504-5 to 1508, when we find him in Rome. Some pictures were left unfinished at the time of his departure for that city, and were completed by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo. A picture sent to Siena, by some supposed the Giardiniera, now at Paris, but more probably the Lanti Madonna, was among these, as well as the Madonna painted for the Dei family an accurate critic, Rumohr, even supposes that the celebrated entombment done for Perugia, which is now in the Borghese palace in Rome, was completed from Raphael's designs by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo. The number of Madonnas, portraits, and altarpieces produced in the three or four years of Raphael's residence in Florence, must of necessity lead to the conclusion that the repetitions of these works, which all pretend to originality, must have been done by his imitators. Again Vasari states, not without some probability, that Raphael visited his native place, and painted several works there for the Duke Guid' Ubaldo, during the short time abovementioned and Malvasia, in his account of the Bolognese school, enumerates various works which were unknown even to Vasari.

Meanwhile Raphael reaped all the improvement which the sight of the excellent works of art in Florence was calculated to communicate. The inspection of the works of Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Vinci enlarged his knowledge of form and his execution, while the