Mothers were afraid to let their
little ones out of their sight, for hungry wolves and other wild beasts
prowled about the deserted countryside.

Then came a day when the outside party managed to creep silently into
the city, and the most terrible fight of all began. So long and
fiercely did the battle rage that almost all the Oddi were killed. Then
for a time there was peace in Perugia and all the country round.

So it happened that as soon as the people of Perugia had time to think
of other things besides fighting, they began to wish that their town
might be put in order, and that the buildings which had been injured
during the struggles might be restored.

This was a good opportunity for peaceful men like Perugino, for there
was much work to be done, and both he and his pupils were kept busy
from morning till night.

Of all his pupils, Perugino loved the young Raphael best. He saw at
once that this was no ordinary boy.

'He is my pupil now, but soon he will be my master,' he used to say as
he watched the boy at work.

So he taught him with all possible carefulness, and was never tired of
giving him good advice.

'Learn first of all to draw,' he would say, when Raphael looked with
longing eyes at the colours and brushes of the master. 'Draw everything
you see, no matter what it is, but always draw and draw again. The rest
will follow; but if the knowledge of drawing be lacking, nothing will
afterwards succeed. Keep always at hand a sketch-book, and draw therein
carefully every manner of thing that meets thy eye.'

Raphael never forgot the good advice of his master. He was never
without a sketch-book, and his drawings now are almost as interesting
as his great pictures, for they show the first thought that came into
his mind, before the picture was composed.

So the years passed on, and Raphael learned all that the master could
teach him. At first his pictures were so like Perugino's, that it was
difficult to know whether they were the work of the master or the pupil.

But the quiet days at Perugia soon came to an end, and Perugino went
back to Florence. For some time Raphael worked at different places near
Perugia, and then followed his master to the City of Flowers, where
every artist longed to go. Though he was still but a young man, the
world had already begun to notice his work, and Florence gladly
welcomed a new artist.

It was just at that time that Leonardo da Vinci's fame was at its
height, and