that the death occurred on April 6, 1520, the anniversary of his birth. His native town, Urbino, was relatively of far greater importance than it is today. Then it was a flourishing literary and artistic center, where poets, scholars, and artists had gathered under the progressive leadership of the Duke of Urbino, Federigo, who died the year before the birth of Raphael. His son, Guidobaldo, though not so virile and aggressive as Roderigo, assisted by his Duchess, one of the most noble and refined women of the Renascence, furthered the arts and sciences. Their palace became the most splendid in Italy, rich in books and treasures of art.

As a

It is in such an atmosphere that Raphael was born. He is the only one of the eminent painters whose own father was a painter. Giovanni Santi was not only a painter, he was also a poet. poet he excelled his son, for the few sonnets of Raphael are commonplace; as a painter he would be unknown save to the antiquarian had he not had the distinction of being the father of the immortal painter. Of Magia Ciarla, the mother, we know that her two children before Raphael died in early childhood. Possibly this is why when little Raphael came she nursed him herself, instead of following the common custom of sending him away to the care of a wet-nurse.

No painter has ever had a sunnier career than Raphael, the darling of fortune. And yet his early

days were in the shadows. When he was eight years old he lost his mother; three years later, the father, who seven months after the death of Magia had given Raphael a step-mother, passed away. These must have been years of sad experience to the sensitive soul of this interpreter of the soul of beauty. Perhaps the latter years of prosperity were given to compensate for the sad experiences of the early days. Or perhaps the angelic Raphael had so much of the joy of life, was such an irrepressible optimist, that even the sad experiences of his childhood could not depress or deject. We cannot tell, for those early years are veiled in obscurity. All we know is that in 1499 he was in Urbino, joining in a settlement between his stepmother and his uncle, and that a year later at another business transaction he was absent.

In the London National Gallery is a picture called "The Dream of a Knight." It is a small picture representing a sleeping knight; to his right stands a demure maiden with a book in one hand and a sword in another; to his left stands a maiden equally demure, at least so she seems to me, offering a flower. The former represents the stern call to duty, the latter, the call to the delights of luxurious ease and pleasure. The figures are graceful, the background is an Umbrian landscape with hills and castles in the distance. The picture is in a wonderful state of preservation, and is remarkable be

cause Raphael likely painted it when he was but seventeen years old. It is doubtful whether a boy of seventeen ever painted a better picture.

Belonging to the same time as the "Dream of the Knight," though the highest authorities place them three or four years later, are the two pictures in the Louvre, "St. George and the Dragon," and "St. Michael and the Dragon." To my mind they have a vigor and grace that stamp them as wonderful pictures for a youth.

The earliest of his numerous madonnas, for Raphael is preeminently the painter of madonnas, is the "Conestabile della Staffa," now in the Hermitage. The Berlin Gallery contains three of the earliest madonnas. They are usually attributed to the year 1502.

It is likely that about 1500 Raphael entered the studio of Perugino in Perugia. Perugino, though lacking in inventiveness, was one of the leading painters of his time, and Perugia, beautifully located seventeen hundred feet above the sea, commanded a prospect such as would inspire a Wordsworth to cry out in admiration,

"Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty."

Raphael was not dull of soul, and it is easy to imagine the refining influence that the natural beauty

of the scenery about Perugia exerted upon the eager adolescent. Perugino was also a fortunate influence; in his studio there were peace and orderliness and competent instruction. But before many months Raphael had absorbed all that Perugino had to of fer. He went to Florence, where he saw the work of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Without becoming a mere imitator, Raphael had the happy faculty of quickly assimilating what each of these wonderful artists had to give. It was about this time that he painted the "Madonna di Sant' Antonio," now in the Pierpont Morgan collection in New York. This picture was purchased by Mr. Morgan for $500,000. It was painted originally for the nuns of St. Anthony of Padua at Perugia.

While in Florence, Raphael painted a number of his famous madonnas. Raphael was not the painter of sorrow, of gigantic conflict, of the deep struggles that engulf man in despair, of the sins that madden and kill; he is the painter of the grace and beauty that elevate, of the joys of motherhood, the innocence of childhood. The Virgin and the holy Child appealed to his temperament. It is in these forms that men "see realized their vision of the mother whom they adore, of the wife who shall be the mother of their children, of the children that they wish to have. All that is pure and holy and of good report in woman, all that is sweet and bright in childhood, is there clothed in forms of

perfect loveliness. . . . Perhaps the first of these immortal works was the 'Madonna del Gran Duca,' so called because of the extreme love which the Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Tuscany felt for it, making it the inseparable companion of his journeys. Of all visions of woman's purity this is without doubt the purest. As she stands there holding the Divine Child on her arm, her great eyes modestly cast down, she is without a rival in the immaculate whiteness of her soul." *

To this time, about 1505, belongs the "Little Cowper Madonna," so called because the smaller of two madonnas formerly owned by Lord Cowper. It was purchased in 1913 by P. A. B. Widener of Philadelphia for a sum said to exceed $700,000, the highest amount ever paid for a picture brought to this country. In this brief sketch we cannot even name the Madonnas painted before he went to Rome. The eminent authority, M. Müntz, thinks that before he was twenty-five Raphael had painted at least sixty pictures. Among the most important of the early Madonnas are the "Madonnas of the Goldfinch," the "Madonna of the Meadow," and the "La Belle Jardinière," now respectively in Florence, Vienna, and Paris.

The "Madonna di Foligno" belongs to his Roman period, appearing in 1512 while he worked on his frescoes. It was originally painted for the * Rose, The World's Leading Painters.