Raffaello Sanzio was born on 6 April in 1483 in Urbino.
The father Giovanni Sanzi, also a painter, encouraged him to study the works of Piero della Francesca, who in Urbino created some of his most beautiful works.
Thus Raffaello started studying drawing and perspective, the father noting his talent found him a better teacher: the Perugino. In the maestro’s workshop he assimilates the grace typical of his works so as the decorative style of the Pinturicchio.
At seventeen Raffaello leaves the Perugino’s workshop with the title of magister giving him permission to exercise as a painter.
In the first part of his profession he created some works for Città di Castello: Pala del Beato Nicola da Tolentino, of which today remain a few fragments kept in Brescia, Naples and Paris; Stendardo della Trinità, located at the art gallery of Città di Castello; and Crocifissione Mond located at the National Gallery in London. Afterwards he created for the family Oddi Pala con l’Incoronazione della Vergine, today at the Vatican art gallery in Rome.
In the same period he painted for the Libreria Piccolmini of Siena, cooperating with Pinturicchio, the frescos Scene della vita di Pio II.
In 1504 Raffello created one of his masterpieces: Sposalizio delle Vergine, that today is located at the art gallery of Brera in Milan. The work is based upon a painting of Perugino, but Raffello shows he has surpassed the maestro’s style. The same year the painter moves to Florence even though maintaining contacts with Urbino’s court for which he in fact painted the portraits of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro and Elisabetta Gonzaga and the dyptich with San Michele who overthrows Satan and San Giorgio who slays the dragon.
At the same time the maestro created two works for the city of Perugia: Pala Colonna, today at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and Pala Ansidei, today at the National Gallery in London.
In Florence Raffaello met the most important representatives of the local culture: Leonardo and Michelangelo. Leonardo’s influence is perceived in the Madonna Terranova put inside a circle, Madonna del Granduca of 1506, Piccola Madonna Cowper, Sacra famiglia and Madonna di Orleans.
Between 1505 and 1508 he also carried out big panels representing: Madonna del Cardellino, Madonna del prato and the so called Bella giardiniera, in these paintings the monumental figures are isolated on a landscape background.
Michelangelo’s influence, that begun with the portraits of Urbino’s dukes, went forth in other paintings such as Giovane con la mela, Dama del liocorno. Also in Florence he created panels of private devotion: in 1506 the family Raffello Sanzoglio commissioned the altar piece for the Santo Spirito church: Madonna del baldacchino and the painting Deposizione requested by a noble lady of Perugia.
