ve of Raphael and determination to promote his
interests.

Raphael at the age of twelve years went to Perugia to work under
Perugino, and remained with his master till he was nearly twenty years
of age. In that interval he painted industriously, making constant
progress, always in the somewhat hard, but finished, style of Perugino,
while already showing a predilection for what was to prove Raphael's
favourite subject, the Madonna and Child. At this period he painted his
famous _Lo Sposalizio_ or the 'Espousals,' the marriage of the Virgin
Mary with Joseph, now at Milan. In 1504 he visited Florence, remaining
only for a short time, but making the acquaintance of Fra Bartolommeo
and Ghirlandajo, seeing the cartoons of Lionardo and Michael Angelo, and
from that time displaying a marked improvement in drawing. Indeed
nothing is more conspicuous in Raphael's genius in contra-distinction to
Michael Angelo's, than the receptive character of Raphael's mind, his
power of catching up an impression from without, and the candour and
humility with which he availed himself unhesitatingly of the assistance
lent him by others.

Returning soon to Florence, Raphael remained there till 1508, when he
was twenty-five years, drawing closer the valuable friendships he had
already formed, and advancing with rapid strides in his art, until his
renown was spread all over Italy, and with reason, since already, while
still young, he had painted his 'Madonna of the Goldfinch,' in the
Florentine Gallery, and his 'La Belle Jardiniere,' or Madonna in a
garden among flowers, now in the Louvre.

In his twenty-fifth year Raphael was summoned to Rome to paint for Pope
Julius II. My readers will remember that Michael Angelo in the abrupt
severity of his prime of manhood, was soon to paint the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel for the same despotic and art-loving Pope, who had
brought Raphael hardly more than a stripling to paint the '_Camere_' or
'_Stanze_' chambers of the Vatican.

The first of the halls which Raphael painted (though not the first in
order) is called the Camera della Segnatura (in English, signature), and
represents Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, with the Sciences, Arts, and
Jurisprudence. The second is the 'Stanza d'Eliodoro,' or the room of
Heliodorus, and contains the grandest painting of all, in the expulsion
of Heliodorus from the Temple of Jerusalem (taken from Maccabees), the
Miracle of Bolsena, Attila, king of the Huns, terrified b