.

In 1504 Raphael painted the two little pictures in the Louvre, _S.
George_ and _S. Michael_ (Nos. 1501-2) for the Duke of Urbino. _The
Knight Dreaming_, a small picture, now in the National Gallery (No.
213), is supposed to have been painted a year earlier.

In the autumn of 1504 Raphael went to Florence. Tuscan art had now
attained its highest perfection, and the most celebrated artists were
there contending for the palm. From this period begins his
emancipation

[Illustration: PLATE VI.--PIETRO PERUGINO

CENTRAL PORTION OF ALTAR-PIECE

_National Gallery, London_]

from the confined manner of Perugino's school; the youth ripens into
manhood and acquires the free mastery of form.

To this time belong the celebrated _Madonna del Granduca_, now in the
Pitti Gallery, and another formerly belonging to the Duke of Terra
Nuova, and now at Berlin (No. 247a). In the next year we find him
employed on several large works in Perugia; these show for the first
time the influence of Florentine art in the purity, fullness, and
intelligent treatment of form; at the same time many of the motives of
the Peruginesque school are still apparent. The famous _Cowper Madonna_,
recently sold to an American for L140,000, also belongs to the year
1505, when the blending of the two influences resulted in a picture
which has been extolled by the sanest of critics as "the loveliest of
Raphael's Virgins." An altar-piece, executed for the church of the
Serviti at Perugia, inscribed with the date 1506, is the famous _Madonna
dei Ansidei_, purchased for the National Gallery from the Duke of
Marlborough. Besides the dreamy religious feeling of the School of
Perugia, we perceive here the aim at a greater freedom, founded on
deeper study.

Raphael was soon back in Florence, where he remained until 1508. The
early paintings of this period betray, as might be expected, many
reminiscences of the Peruginesque school, both in conception and
execution; the later ones follow in all essential respects the general
style of the Florentines.

One of the earliest is the _Virgin in the Meadow_, in the Belvedere
Gallery at Vienna. Two others show a close affinity with this
composition; one is the _Madonna del Cardellino_, in the Tribune of the
Uffizi, in which S. John presents a goldfinch to the infant Christ. The
other is the so-called _Belle Jardiniere_, inscribed 1507, in the
Louvre.

It is interesting to observe Raphael's progress in the smaller pic