Raphael by Paul G. Konody — Read

At the end of the fifteenth century the rule of the Duke Federigo of Montefeltre, an enlightened prince who devoted the best of his energy and such time as he could spare from his duties on the battlefield to the patronage of the arts, to the adornment of his noble palace, and to the collecting of priceless manuscripts, paintings, antiques, and works of art of every description, had raised the old city of Urbino to one of the centres of culture and learning, and made the ducal court a gathering-place for the distinguished painters, architects, poets, and humanists who were attracted by the wealth and liberality of this great patron. Among the less distinguished satellites attracted by the sun of Montefeltre was one Giovanni Santi, who had come to Urbino in the middle of the fifteenth century. Though a painter of considerable skill, trained perhaps by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, he found it necessary in the early days of his sojourn at Urbino to supplement his modest income by trading in oil and corn and other commodities, as his father had done before him. But his varied accomplishments soon brought him into prominence and secured him a position as court painter and poet. More important than any of the pictures that have come to us from his brush is his famous rhyming chronicle of 23,000 verses in Dantesque measure, in which he glorifies the virtues and exploits of his patron. He was a special favourite of Elisabetta Gonzaga, the youthful spouse of Federigo's son Guidobaldo, whose high esteem for Giovanni is expressed in a letter in which she informs her sister-in-law of the court painter's death.

To this Giovanni Santi and to his wife Magia Ciarla was born on Good Friday, the 28th of March[1] 1483, a son who was destined in the comparatively short span of his life to rise to fame such as has been the share of few mortals. An elder brother and sister of Raphael had died in infancy, and his mother followed them to the grave before he had reached his eighth year. Her place in the paternal home was taken by Bernardina Parte, a goldsmith's daughter, whom Giovanni wedded soon after his first wife's death. From Giovanni Santi's great poem it would appear that he was on terms of friendship and intimacy with some of the greatest masters of the time, such as Melozzo da Forli, Mantegna, Pier dei Franceschi, and Verrocchio; and it is reasonable to assume that Raphael's earliest art education under his father's guidance tended towards the development of that peculiar faculty which enabled him later on to seize and assimilate the excellences in the style of the various masters with whom he came in contact.