piring facts. J. E. K.

[Illustration: SISTINE MADONNA. _Raphael._]

RAPHAEL SANTI

"THE PERFECT ARTIST, THE PERFECT MAN."

We are about to study Raphael, the most generally praised, the most
beautiful, and certainly the most loved of all the painters of the
world. When all these delightful things can be truthfully said of one
man, surely we may look forward with pleasure to a detailed study of
his life and works.

Often in examining the lives of great men we are compelled to pass
over some events which, to say the least, are not creditable. Of
Raphael this was not true. He was gifted with all admirable qualities,
and so many-sided was his genius that, while we think of him first as
a painter, we must not forget that he also carved statues, wrote
poems, played musical instruments, and planned great buildings.

So much was he endeared to his pupils that, after he grew to be
famous, he never went on the streets unless he was followed by an
admiring throng of these students, ever ready to do his bidding or to
defend his art from any possible attack by malicious critics. He lived
at a time when artists were fiercely jealous of each other, and yet
wherever he went harmony, like a good angel, walked unseen beside him,
making whatever assembly he entered the abode of peace and good-will.
It is a beautiful thing that such a strong, lovable man should have
had for his name that of the chief of the archangels, Raphael, a name
beautiful of sound and ever suggestive of beauty and loveliness.

There seemed to have been special preparation for the birth of this
unique character. Not only were his parents of the ideal sort, loving
the best things of life and thinking ever of how best to rear the
little son that God had given them, but the very country into which he
was born was fitted to still further develop his natural tenderness
and sweetness of disposition.

Webmo, the birthplace of Raphael, is a secluded mountain town on a
cliff on the east slope of the Apennines directly east of Florence. It
is in the division known as Umbria, a section noted for its gently
broken landscape, such as in later years the artist loved to paint as
background for his most beautiful Madonnas. Here the people were shut
off from much of the excitement known to commercial towns. They were
slower to take up new things than the people in the coast cities where
men live by the exchange of goods and, incidentally, of customs. The
i