cturesque scheme largely to Michael Angelo. The
fascination of the long flights of steps leading from the Piazza
Aracoeeli to the Capitoline, where the ancient bronze equestrian statue
of Marcus Aurelius forever keeps guard, is indescribable. The historic
statues of Castor and Pollux mark the portals; on either hand there are
seen the Muses of ancient sculpture, the Palazzo Senatoriale and the
Palazzo dei Conservatori. There is in the entire world no more classic
ground than is found in this impressive grouping of art and
architecture.

The genius of Raphael has recorded itself in those brilliant and
imperishable works that enthrall the student of art in the Raphael
stanze in the Vatican. He was imbued with the spirit of Greek art, and
while Titian is a greater colorist, while Correggio, Botticelli,
Perugino, and other artists that could be named equal or exceed Raphael
in certain lines, yet as the interpreter of the profoundest thought, and
for his philosophic grasp and his power to endow his conceptions with
the most brilliant animation, he stands alone. The religious exaltation
of "The Transfiguration" reveals the supreme degree of the divine genius
of Raphael. That this painting was the last work of his life, that it
was placed above his body as it lay in state, and was carried in his
funeral procession, invests it with peculiar interest.

As a draftsman Raphael was second only to Michael Angelo, with whom he
must forever share the immortality of fame. The Academy in Venice holds
some of his choicest drawings, and in the Venetian sketch-book in the
National Gallery in London are many of his small pictures, including
that of the "Knight's Dream."

It was in the autumn of 1508, when Raphael was in his twenty-fifth year,
that he was called to Rome in the service of the Pope. The Pontiff at
this time was Pope Julius II, whose successor was Leo X, and under their
pontificates (from 1508 to 1520) Raphael produced these masterpieces
which stand unrivalled in the world save by the creations of Michael
Angelo in the Capella Sistina. The celebrated "Four Sibyls" of Raphael
are not, however, in the stanze of the Vatican, but in the Church of San
Maria della Pace. In the Palazzo Vaticano these four wonderful stanze
entrance the visitor; the Stanza della Signatura, the Stanza d'Eliodoro,
the Stanza dell'Incendio and the Sala di Constantino.

For the decoration of these stanze several painters from Umbria had been
summoned,--