Raphael | Biography, Artworks, Paintings, Accomplishments, Death, & Facts

Top Questions

Why is Raphael so important?

Raphael was one of the most talented painters of the Italian Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. He was also a popular architect during his lifetime.

What is Raphael famous for?

Raphael is probably most famous for his paintings, including Madonna in the Meadow (1505/06), School of Athens (c. 1508–11), Sistine Madonna (1512/13), The Transfiguration (1516–20), and Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (c. 1514–15).

What was Raphael’s family like?

Raphael was born to Giovanni Santi, a painter, and Magia di Battista Ciarla, both of whom died when Raphael was a child. Biographer Giorgio Vasari indicated that Raphael was later engaged to a niece of a friend who was a cardinal, but Raphael continuously put off the wedding.

How was Raphael educated?

Raphael’s father, a painter, offered his son his first lessons. Raphael later joined Perugino’s workshop about the 1490s, but scholars debate whether it was as a pupil or as an assistant. By age 17 Raphael was called a “master,” yet he continued to study the work of his contemporaries, notably Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

How did Raphael die?

Raphael died of a fever at the age of 37. Biographer Giorgio Vasari mentions Raphael’s love of women and alleges that the fever was caused by a night of excess passion, a tale that mythologized Raphael as an indulgent lothario.

Summary

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Raphael, Italian in full Raffaello Sanzio or Raffaello Santi, (born April 6, 1483, Urbino, Duchy of Urbino [Italy]—died April 6, 1520, Rome, Papal States [Italy]), master painter and architect of the Italian High Renaissance. Raphael is best known for his Madonnas and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur.

Early years at Urbino

Raphael was the son of Giovanni Santi and Magia di Battista Ciarla; his mother died in 1491. His father was, according to the 16th-century artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari, a painter “of no great merit.” He was, however, a man of culture who was in constant contact with the advanced artistic ideas current at the court of Urbino. He gave his son his first instruction in painting, and, before his death in 1494, when Raphael was 11, he had introduced the boy to humanistic philosophy at the court.

Urbino had become a centre of culture during the rule of Duke Federico da Montefeltro, who encouraged the arts and attracted the visits of men of outstanding talent, including Donato Bramante, Piero della Francesca, and Leon Battista Alberti, to his court. Although Raphael would be influenced by major artists in Florence and Rome, Urbino constituted the basis for all his subsequent learning. Furthermore, the cultural vitality of the city probably stimulated the exceptional precociousness of the young artist, who, even at the beginning of the 16th century, when he was scarcely 17 years old, already displayed an extraordinary talent.