Raphael (Italian, 1483–1520)

b. 1483 — d. 1520

Raffaello Sanzio (Urbino, April 6, 1483-Rome, April 6, 1520), commonly known as Raphael, was one of the most admired Italian painters and architects on the High Renaissance. He was trained in his native city Urbino, a center of art and culture during the rule of the Duke Federico da Montefeltro. Around 1495, Raphael moved to Perugia and joined the master Pietro Perugino's workshop. He later sojourned to Siena, and then resided in Florence by the autumn of 1504. There, Raphael studied the works by Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Fra Bartolomeo, and Masaccio. Raphael is best known for his paintings of Madonnas (from 1504 through 1507), and the frescoes that Pope Julio II commissioned to him in the Vatican Palace in Rome in 1514. The same year architect Donato Bramante died, and the pope appointed Raphael chief architect. Raphael's style was based on clarity of forms and harmonious compositions; after his death, his works were highly admired by both Mannerist and Baroque artists.