art center of
Italy. We can only guess at his joy in seeing the works here and in
greeting his fellow artists.

Angelo and Da Vinci had just finished their cartoons for the town
hall, "_The Bathing Soldiers_," and "_The Battle of the Standard_,"
and they were on exhibition. All Florence was studying them, and of
this throng we may be sure Raphael was an enthusiastic member. While
here he painted several pictures. Among them was the "_Granduca
Madonna_," the simplest of all his Madonnas--just a lovely young
mother holding her babe. It is still in Florence, and to this day
people look at it and say the Grand Duke, who would go nowhere
without this gem of pictures, knew what was beautiful.

[Illustration: RAPHAEL IN HIS STUDIO.]

Raphael did not stay long in Florence at this time, but soon returned
to Perugia. His next visit to Florence was of greater length. During
these years, 1506 to 1508, he painted many of his best known pictures.
In studying the works of Raphael you must never tire of the beautiful
Madonna, for it is said that he painted a hundred of these, so much
did he love the subject and so successful was he in representing the
child Jesus and the lovely mother. Some of his finest Madonnas belong
to this time. Let us look at a few of them.

One, called "_The Madonna of the Goldfinch_," shows Mary seated with
the Child Jesus at her knee and the young John presenting him with a
finch, which he caresses gently. The Madonna has the drooping eyes,
the exquisitely rounded face that always charm us, and the boys are
real live children ready for a frolic. Another, called "_The Madonna
of the Meadow_," represents the Virgin in the foreground of a gently
broken landscape with the two children playing beside her. We must not
forget, either, as belonging to this time, the very beautiful "_La
Belle Jardiniere_," or the "_Madonna of the Garden_" which now hangs
in the Louvre, the art gallery of Paris.

Like all his great Madonnas, the Virgin and Children are of surpassing
loveliness. It is finished in such a soft, melting style that to see
it in its exquisite coloring, one could easily imagine it vanishing
imperceptibly into the blaze of some splendid sunset. While we are
talking of Raphael's color it may be interesting to call your
attention to a very remarkable fact about his paintings. He lays the
color on the canvas so thin that sometimes one can trace through it
the lines of the drawing, and yet his color is so p