Probably Andrea del Sarto would have come to be a better painter if he had been a happier man. His wife, of whom he was very fond, was a mean, selfish woman who wished only to make a great show, and did not value her husband's talents except for the money which they brought him. She even influenced him to desert his parents, to whom he had ever been a dutiful son. About 1518 Francis I., king of France, invited Andrea to Paris to execute some works for him. The painter went, and was well established there and very popular, when his wife insisted that he should return to Florence. Francis I. was very unwilling to spare him, but Andrea dared not refuse to go to his wife; so he solemnly took an oath to return to Paris and bring his wife, so that he could remain as long as pleased the king, and then that sovereign consented. Francis also gave the artist a large sum of money to buy for him all sorts of beautiful objects. When Andrea reached Florence his wife refused to go to France, and persuaded him to give her the king's money. She soon spent it, and Andrea, who lived ten years more, was very unhappy, while the king never forgave him, and to this day this wretched story must be told, and continues the remembrance of his dishonesty. After all he had sacrificed for his wife, when he became very ill, in 1530, of some contagious disease, she deserted him. He died alone, and with no prayer or funeral was buried in the Convent of the Nunziata, where he had painted some of his frescoes. [Illustration: FIG. 41.--THE MADONNA DEL SACCO. _By Andrea del Sarto._] His pictures are very numerous; they are correct in drawing, very softly finished, and have a peculiar gray tone of color. He painted a great number of Holy Families, one of which is called the "Madonna del Sacco," because St. Joseph is leaning on a sack (Fig. 41). This is in the convent where he is buried. His best work is called the "Madonna di San Francesco" and hangs in the tribune of the Uffizi Gallery. This is a most honorable place, for near it are pictures by Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, and other great painters, as well as some very celebrated statues, such as the "Venus de Medici" and the "Dancing Faun." Andrea del Sarto's pictures of the Madonna and Child are almost numberless; they are sweet, attractive works, as are also his St. Barbara, St. Agnes, and others of his single figures. We will now leave the Florentine school of the sixteenth century, and speak of the great master of the Roman school, RAPHAEL SANZIO, or SANTI (1483-1520), who was born at Urbino on Good Friday. His father was a painter, and Raphael showed his taste for art very early in life. Both his parents died while he was still a child, and though he must have learned something from seeing his father and other painters at their work, we say that Perugino was his first master, for he was but twelve years old when he entered the studio of that painter in Perugia.