Although he lived but thirty-seven years, Raphael gave to the world a
vast amount of art treasure. Brought up in Urbino, where his father,
Giovanni Santi, was poet as well as painter, he passed before he
was fifteen under the direct influence of Timoteo Viti, who had
worked at Bologna under Francesco Francia. Raphael became the pupil
of Perugino at Perugia about 1500, and also worked as the assistant
of Pintoricchio. His art being thus formed on the best Umbrian
tradition, Raphael in October 1504 left Perugia for Florence, and it
was only at that date that he began to acquire a distinctive style of
his own. During his second or Florentine period he painted the _St.
George and the Dragon_ (No. 1503), in which is seen the chivalrous
knight mounted on a pure white steed; his lance is broken in his combat
with the monster, and he is forced to use his sword, while the little
Princess Cleodolinda flees in abject terror into the background. The
very small panel of _St. Michael_ (No. 1502), which is a chessboard on
the back, was painted for Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, and eventually
passed into the collections of Cardinal Mazarin and Louis XIV. The
_Madonna and Child_ which has come to be known as _La Belle Jardinière_
(No. 1496, Plate VII.) is rather later than the _Madonna del Gran’
Duca_ in the Pitti Palace, the _Cardellino Madonna_ in the Uffizi,
and the _Ansidei Madonna_ in the National Gallery. It is one of the
most famous of Raphael’s saintly and ideal Madonnas; the pose of the
figures is easy, the treatment simple, the colour exquisite. The
landscape background is poetic in feeling, and conveys the mood which
makes this one of Raphael’s most pleasing creations. The thin feathery
trees and the treatment of the Virgin’s hair are still Peruginesque,
but the superiority of the pupil to the master is gradually making
itself felt. The Infant Christ is standing on the right foot of His
mother. Tradition says that Raphael entrusted to Ridolfo Ghirlandaio
the task of painting in the blue of the Virgin’s garment. The drapery
is apparently inscribed: