RAFFAELLE, RAFFAELLO, RAFAEL, or RAPHAEL, SANZIO, was born at Urbino, in the Papal States, on the 6th of April 1483. The family patronymic had been originally De Santi or Sancti, but custom had gradually worn it into Sanzio. His father, Giovanni Sanzio, like others of his kindred at Urbino, was a painter of moderate ability, and what was still better, was possessed of a noble modesty which enabled him to foresee and acknowledge the future glory of his immortal son. Raffaello was a painter from his cradle. He played with the implements of his father's art, and in no long time he exhibited a talent for drawing of such extraordinary precocity that his father chose for his master the most renowned painter of the day, Pietro Vanucci, called "Il Perugino." From the first he displayed a wonderful facility, and while engaged on the same canvas with his master the entire piece seemed the product of one hand. At the end of three years, business called Perugino to Florence, and Raffaello, with the blessing of his generous master, set out at the age of seventeen to try his fortune with his pencil. The paintings executed by him at this early period, though very much in the manner of Perugino, display a subtle grace and delicacy altogether peculiar to himself. He visited Florence in 1504, where Leonardo's "Battle of the Standard" and Michel Angelo's celebrated "Cartoon" gave him much to study, and taught him how much he had still to learn. Raffaello is commonly reported to have lost his parents before he was twelve years old; but this supposition is shown to be entirely groundless by the letter of introduction which he received from the Duchess of Urbino, dated October 1, 1504, and addressed to the gonfaloniere Soderini of Florence. In that document her ladyship alludes to his father as still living: "and as I know his father," she says, "who is dear to me, to be a virtuous man," &c. Raffaello was at that period in his twenty-first year; but how long afterwards that "virtuous man" was permitted to watch the rising star of his son's fame we have no means of knowing. How very much he seems to have profited by what he saw and heard at Florence is abundantly evinced by his exquisitely beautiful pictures of that period, some of them very elaborate, as "The Entombment of Christ." They display a grace and a power of expression which was quite remarkable, and almost entirely new to Italian art. Pope Julius II. invited him to Rome towards the end of the year 1508, where he remained till his death. He commenced work on the Camera della Segnatura, and executed his figures of Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Justice on its ceiling, before undertaking the larger paintings which were to adorn its walls. In simplicity and beauty, in severity and dignity, in energy of execution and in beauty of individual character, the "Disputa del Sacramento" has never yet been surpassed. This is the character of nearly all his subsequent productions: they stand unrivalled in composition, and in grandeur of conception they have never been equalled. As a painter, sculptor, and architect,—in short, as a perfect master of design,—Michel Angelo knows of no equal; while Raffaello, who was solely a painter, lavished all the treasures and various excellences of an uncommonly gifted nature on his art; in grandeur and in grace, in delicacy and in softness, in the strength of man and in the elegance of woman, he displayed every quality that can by any possibility distinguish a great painter. He died at the early age of thirty-seven, on the 7th of April 1520. His pictures number in all about 128, besides a large number of drawings which are scattered throughout various parts of Europe. An estimate of his works will be found in the articles Arts, Fine, and Painting. Besides the works of Lanzi and Vasari, the reader may consult The Life and Works of Raffaello, by Quatremère de Quincy, translated into English by William Hazlitt, jun., London, 1846.