he great chiefs of the Florentine School.

Raphael Sanzio, or Santi of Urbino, the head of the Roman School, was
one of those very exceptional men who seem born to happiness, to inspire
love and only love, to pass through the world making friends and
disarming enemies, who are fully armed to confer pleasure while almost
incapable of either inflicting or receiving pain. To this day his
exceptional fortune stands Raphael's memory in good stead, since for one
man or woman who yearns after the austere righteousness and priceless
tenderness of Michael Angelo, there are ten who yield with all their
hearts to the gay, sweet gentleness and generosity of Raphael. No doubt
it was also in his favour as a painter, that though a man of highly
cultivated tastes, 'in close intimacy and correspondence with most of
the celebrated men of his time, and interested in all that was going
forward,' he did not, especially in his youth, spend his strength on a
variety of studies, but devoted himself to painting. While he thus
vindicated his share of the breadth of genius of his country and time,
by giving to the world the loveliest Madonnas and Child-Christs, the
most dramatic of battle-pieces, the finest of portraits, his noble and
graceful fertility of invention and matchless skill of execution were
confined to and concentrated on painting. He did not diverge long or far
into the sister arts of architecture and sculpture, though his classic
researches in the excavations of Rome were keen and zealous; a heap of
ruins having given to the world in 1504 the group of the
that a writer of his day could record that 'Raphael had sought and found
in Rome another Rome.'

Raphael was born in the town of Urbino, and was the son of a painter of
the Umbrian School, who very early destined the boy to his future
career, and promoted his destination by all the efforts in Giovanni
Santi's power, including the intention of sending away and apprenticing
the little lad to the best master of his time, Perugino, so called from
the town where he resided, Perugia. Raphael's mother died when he was
only eight years of age, and his father died when he was no more than
eleven years, before the plans for his education were put into action.
But no stroke of outward calamity, or loss--however severe, could annul
Raphael's birthright of universal favour. His step-mother, the uncles
who were his guardians, his clever, perverse, unscrupulous master, all
joined in a common lo