Raphael (RAFF ay el) was born in Urbino in the Marche
area of
central Italy. He probably learned to paint in his father's art studio.
His mother died when he was eight, and he became an orphan when he was
eleven and his father died.
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It was at this time he entered the studio of the
artist Perugino. It
soon became apparent that he was going to become a great artist. He
studied the paintings of Michelangelo and Leonardo di Vinci and was
greatly influenced by those artists.
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When he was twenty-one years old he moved to Florence
and began to
paint beautiful portraits. So many people wanted portraits painted by
him! He could not paint fast enough to keep up with the demand, so he
hired other artists to do parts of the paintings. Raphael might paint
the face and let someone else paint the clothing in the picture.
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He became so famous that Pope
Julius II (the Second) commissioned
him to decorate his apartment in the Vatican, the home of the Catholic
Church. "The School of Athens" is one of the most famous paintings he
did for the Pope.
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He created ten pictures known as "cartoons" from which
tapestries were
made. A tapestry is a picture made with different colors of thread
woven to create the image. You can see an example of this in "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes". First he made the
painting, then another person created the picture on a wall hanging
made of cloth.
( Read the story of "The
Miraculous Draught of Fishes".)
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Pope
Leo X (the Tenth) was the next Pope and he designated Raphael to be
the architect of St. Peter's cathedral.
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Raphael painted many pictures of Mary and Jesus such
as The Madonna Della Sedia which is featured on this page.
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He was born on a Good Friday, and he died on a Good
Friday on his thirty-seventh birthday.
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