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Born in 1483 in Urbino,
central Italy, Raphael (Raffaello Santi or Sanzio) was
the son of Giovanni Santi, a painter and poet who first
trained Raphael. During his childhood, Raphael was exposed
to the wide range of artistic activity around the Montefeltro
court. After his father died in 1494, Raphael travelled
extensively and worked with several masters including
the dominant Umbrian painter Pietro Perugino.
Around
1504 Raphael moved to the vibrant artistic center of
Florence. Confronted by the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo,
Fra Bartolomeo and other great masters of the 15th century,
Raphael began another phase of his artistic education.
Many of his paintings were portraits or Madonnas, variations
on a theme that allowed him to experiment compositionally
without being tied to a single large project. He also
continued to travel frequently and in late 1508, moved
to Rome to work for Pope Julius II.
Soon after
his arrival, Raphael assumed responsibility for the
decoration of the Stanza della Segnatura, one
of Pope Julius II's private rooms in the Vatican. Raphael's
frescoes there and subsequently in the adjacent Stanza
d'Eliodoro and dell'Incendio, along with
Michelangelo's simultaneous work in the nearby Sistine
Chapel, represent a glorious moment in the history of
Western art. The number of commissions given to Raphael
grew rapidly during the 1510s, and he relied increasingly
on teams of assistants to complete these projects. In
addition to the stanza, Raphael was responsible
for the Chigi chapels in Santa Maria della Pace and
Santa Maria del Popolo, the cartoons for the tapestry
cycle The Acts of the Apostles for Pope Leo X,
frescoes in the logge of the Vatican and of the
Villa Farnesina, and many portraits, altarpieces, and
designs for engravings.
Raphael died after a
short illness on Good Friday in 1520 at age 37, having
attained a position of almost complete artistic dominance
in Rome. His two principal assistants, Giulio Romano
and Gianfrancesco Penni, inherited his studio and completed
the outstanding contracts that had been awarded during
Raphael's lifetime. But the powerful artistic control
that Raphael had exerted over his assistants had disappeared
and the transformation of his style by a host of different
interpreters began.
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