himself to a more intimate study of the human form and movement! The fascination exercised upon him by the genius of Lionardo found expression in some of the earliest fruits of Raphael's sojourn in Florence—the portraits at the Pitti Palace known as "Angelo Doni" and his wife Maddalena Strozzi, who, however, could not possibly have been the model for this reminiscence of Lionardo's "Mona Lisa," since it is known that she was baptized in 1489, whereas Raphael's portrait of 1504 represents a woman of ripe age.

In the workshop of the architect Baccio d'Agnolo, which was then a favourite social resort of the younger artists of Florence, the youth from Urbino met on terms of equality such masters as Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Antonio da Sangallo, Sansovino, and Fra Bartolommeo, who again had a considerable share in the formation of Raphael's style, as may be seen from the "Madonna di Sant'Antonio," now lent to the National Gallery by Mr. Pierpont Morgan who is said to have paid for it the enormous price of £100,000. This picture, and the "Ansidei Madonna," which was bought for the National Gallery from the Duke of Marlborough's collection for £70,000, were painted during a visit to Perugia towards the end of 1505—the former for the nuns of St. Antony of Padua, in Perugia, and the other for the Ansidei Chapel in the church of San Fiorenzo of the same city.

PLATE V.—THE MADONNA OF THE TOWER

(In the National Gallery, London)

This beautiful painting, which the National Gallery owes to the generosity of Miss Eva Mackintosh, who presented it to the nation in 1906, was at one time in the collection of the Duc d'Orléans. The late owner was fortunate in securing this unquestionably genuine masterpiece at the Rogers' sale in 1856 for 480 guineas. It was painted about 1512; and a copy of it by Sassoferrato is in the Leichtenburg collection in St. Petersburg.

The records of Raphael's movements between 1504 and 1508, when he finally left Florence, are scanty and unreliable. Certain it is that, besides his visit to Perugia, he spent some time at Urbino in 1506, when he painted for Guidobaldo the "St. George" which figured among the gifts taken by Castiglione to Henry VII. of England, from whom the Duke of Urbino had received the insignia of the Garter two years previously. The picture is now at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The majority of those exquisite Madonna pictures, which have contributed more than anything else to Raphael's undying fame and popularity, date from his Florentine period—the "Madonna del Granduca" at the Pitti Palace, the "Casa Tempi Madonna" at Munich, the Chantilly "Madonna of the House of Orleans," the "Madonna of the Meadow" in Vienna, the "Madonna of the Goldfinch" at the Uffizi, the "Madonna of the Lamb" at Madrid, Lord Cowper's famous picture at Panshanger, and the "Belle Jardinière" at the Louvre.

To the same period belongs the portrait of himself, in the Painter's Hall of the Uffizi, and the portrait of a youth in the Budapest National Gallery. On the occasion of his visit to Perugia, Atalanta Baglione, the mother of Grifonetto Baglione who had fallen a victim to the bloody family feud that turned Perugia into a slaughter-house in 1500, commissioned from Raphael an altar-piece in memory of that event—the "Entombment" which the master finished in Florence in 1507, and which is now at the Borghese Gallery. It was Raphael's first attempt at dramatic composition, the art of which he had yet to master—its forced, unnatural emotion lays it more open to criticism than any other work from his own hand.

A law-case in connection with the payment of 100 crowns due by him for a house he had purchased from the Cervasi family, necessitated Raphael's presence at Urbino once again in October 1507. In April of the following year Guidobaldo died; and a letter from Raphael to his uncle Simone Ciarla, who had informed him of this sad event, proves that the master was then back again in Florence. After expressing his grief at the news of the Duke's death ("I could not read your letter without tears"), Raphael appeals in this letter to his uncle to procure him another letter of recommendation to the Gonfaloniere of Florence "from my Lord the Prefect," since it was in the power of the chief magistrate of Florence to place an important commission for the decoration of a certain apartment.

But a better fate was in store for the youthful applicant, who was to be called to a wider field of action. According to Vasari it was Raphael's kinsman, Bramante of Urbino, who drew Pope Julius II.'s attention to the rare gifts of Raphael, and caused him to be summoned to Rome. And the voice of Bramante, who stood in high favour with the Pope, and was engaged on the scheme of rebuilding the Cathedral of St. Peter, would certainly have commanded attention. But on this, as on many other points, Vasari is not wholly trustworthy. First of all, Bramante was not connected with Raphael by any family ties; and, then, it is far more probable that the thought of calling Raphael to Rome to assist in the decoration of the papal apartments in the Vatican was suggested to Julius II. by the Prefetessa Giovanna della Rovere, who had always been a staunch supporter of the Urbinate, or by her son Francesco, the nephew and successor of Duke Guidobaldo Montefeltre. Bramante, who was on terms of friendship with his fellow-artist and fellow-townsman, may well have supported the recommendation. However this may be, Raphael received the Pope's command, and journeyed to Rome, whither he had already been preceded by Michelangelo.

III

Raphael came to Rome before September 1508, for on the 5th of that month he sent a letter from the city of the popes to Francia at Bologna, whom he had probably met at Urbino. It must have been an intoxicating experience for the young master to find himself suddenly surrounded by the wonders of the classic world which at that time dominated the whole world of thought so that Christianity itself became permeated with Paganism; and to be as suddenly raised from the modest position, which in Florence had made him look with awe and veneration upon Michelangelo and Lionardo, to independent responsibility, as the compeer of the greatest of his calling. From the very first Pope Julius II. seems to have placed the utmost confidence in the newcomer, and the manner in which Raphael accomplished the first task set to him by his mighty patron not only justified this confidence but apparently made the Pope dissatisfied with much of the decorative work that had been executed in the Vatican rooms before the advent of the Urbinate.

Julius II.'s hatred of his predecessor, Alexander VI., had made it distasteful for him to live in the apartments that had been occupied by the Borgia Pope, so that he decided, in 1507, to move into the upper rooms of the Vatican, which, under the pontificate of Nicholas V., had been decorated by Pier dei Franceschi and Bramantino. These frescoes, however, did not find favour with the new Pope, who enlisted the services of Perugino, Peruzzi, Sodoma, Signorelli, and Pinturicchio for the redecoration of the Stanze, and finally entrusted Raphael with the painting of four medallions in Sodoma's ceiling in the first room, the Camera della Signatura. There has been some divergence of opinion as to the use of this room, but the subjects of the decorative scheme