er glaring
they might have been. Truly may we affirm that those who are the
possessors of endowments so rich and varied as were assembled in the
person of Raphael, are scarcely to be called simple men only--they are
rather, if it be permitted so to speak, entitled to the appellation of
mortal gods; and further are we authorized to declare that he who by
means of his works has left an honored name in the records of fame
here below may also hope to enjoy such rewards in heaven as are
commensurate to and worthy of their labors and merits.

Raphael was born at Urbino--a most renowned city of Italy--on Good
Friday of the year 1483; at three o'clock of the night. His father
was a certain Giovanni de' Santi; a painter of no great eminence in
his art, but a man of sufficient intelligence nevertheless, and
perfectly competent to direct his children into that good way which
had not, for his misfortune, been laid open to himself in his younger
days. And first, as he knew how important it is that a child should be
nourished by the milk of its own mother, and not by that of the hired
nurse, so he determined when his son Raphael (to whom he gave that
name at his baptism, as being one of good augury) was born to him,
that the mother[34] of the child, he having no other--as, indeed, he
never had more--should herself be the nurse of the child. Giovanni
further desired that in his tender years the boy should rather be
brought up to the habits of his own family, and beneath his paternal
roof, than be sent where he must acquire habits and manners less
refined and modes of thought less commendable, in the houses of the
peasantry or other untaught persons. As the child became older,
Giovanni began to instruct him in the first principles of painting;
perceiving that he was much inclined to that art, and finding him to
be endowed with a most admirable genius; few years had passed,
therefore, before Raphael, tho still but a child, became a valuable
assistant to his father in the numerous works which the latter
executed in the state of Urbino.

[Footnote 34: Raphael's mother was Magia Ciarla, who died when he was
eight years old. He was brought up by a stepmother.]

At length this good and affectionate father, knowing that his son
would acquire but little of his art from himself, resolved to place
him with Pietro Perugino, who, according to what Giovanni had been
told, was then considered to hold the first place among the painters
of the tim