rwards placed it, as a relic and a very rare
thing, and, in a word, as a work by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino,
and also to honour the memory of that most illustrious lady, in the
apartment of the Superior of that hermitage, where it is held in the
veneration that it deserves.

Having executed these works and settled his affairs, Raffaello
returned to Perugia, where he painted a panel-picture of Our Lady,
S. John the Baptist, and S. Nicholas, for the Chapel of the Ansidei
in the Church of the Servite Friars. And in the Chapel of the
Madonna in S. Severo, a little monastery of the Order of Camaldoli,
in the same city, he painted in fresco a Christ in Glory, and a God
the Father with angels round Him, and six saints seated, S.
Benedict, S. Romualdo, S. Laurence, S. Jerome, S. Mauro, and S.
Placido, three on either side; and on this picture, which was held
at that time to be most beautiful for a work in fresco, he wrote his
name in large and very legible letters. In the same city, also, he
was commissioned by the Nuns of S. Anthony of Padua to paint a
panel-picture of Our Lady, with Jesus Christ fully dressed, as it
pleased those simple and venerable sisters, in her lap, and on
either side of the Madonna S. Peter, S. Paul, S. Cecilia, and S.
Catherine; to which two holy virgins he gave the sweetest and most
lovely expressions of countenance and the most beautifully varied
head-dresses that are anywhere to be seen, which was a rare thing in
those times. Above this panel, in a lunette, he painted a very
beautiful God the Father, and in the predella of the altar three
scenes with little figures, of Christ praying in the Garden, bearing
the Cross (wherein are some soldiers dragging Him along with most
beautiful movements), and lying dead in the lap of His Mother. This
work is truly marvellous and devout; and it is held in great
veneration by those nuns, and much extolled by all painters.

I will not refrain from saying that it was recognized, after he had
been in Florence, that he changed and improved his manner so much,
from having seen many works by the hands of excellent masters, that
it had nothing to do with his earlier manner; indeed, the two might
have belonged to different masters, one much more excellent than the
other in painting.

Before he departed from Perugia, Madonna Atalanta Baglioni besought
him that he should consent to paint a panel for her chapel in the
Church of S. Francesco; but since he was not abl