seized by a
severe chill, and in a few days the news spread like wildfire through
the country that Raphael was dead.

It seemed almost as if it could not be true. He had been so full of
life and health, so eager for work, such a living power among men.

But there he lay, beautiful in death as he had been in life, and over
his head was hung the picture of the 'Transfiguration,' on which he had
been at work, its colours yet wet, never to be finished by that still
hand.

All Rome flocked to his funeral, and high and low mourned his loss. But
he left behind him a fame which can never die, a name which through all
these four hundred years has never lost the magic of its greatness.

MICHELANGELO

Sometimes in a crowd of people one sees a tall man, who stands head and
shoulders higher than any one else, and who can look far over the heads
of ordinary-sized mortals.

'What a giant!' we exclaim, as we gaze up and see him towering above us.

So among the crowd of painters travelling along the road to Fame we see
above the rest a giant, a greater and more powerful genius than any
that came before or after him. When we hear the name of Michelangelo we
picture to ourselves a great rugged, powerful giant, a veritable son of
thunder, who, like the Titans of old, bent every force of Nature to his
will.

This Michelangelo was born at Caprese among the mountains of Casentino.
His father, Lodovico Buonarroti, was podesta or mayor of Caprese, and
came of a very ancient and honourable family, which had often
distinguished itself in the service of Florence.

Now the day on which the baby was born happened to be not only a
Sunday, but also a morning when the stars were especially favourable.
So the wise men declared that some heavenly virtue was sure to belong
to a child born at that particular time, and without hesitation
Lodovico determined to call his little son Michael Angelo, after the
archangel Michael. Surely that was a name splendid enough to adorn any
great career.

It happened just then that Lodovico's year of office ended, and so he
returned with his wife and child to Florence. He had a property at
Settignano, a little village just outside the city, and there he
settled down.

Most of the people of the village were stone-cutters, and it was to the
wife of one of these labourers that little Michelangelo was sent to be
nursed. So in after years the great master often said that if his mind
was worth anything, he ow