It may be well to preface these observations by borrowing a passage of equal aptness and eloquence from an able review of Passavant's work.[168] [Footnote 168: _British and Foreign Review_, vol. XIII., p. 248.] "We may doubt whether in the whole range of modern history, or within the compass of modern Europe, one moment or one spot could be found more singularly propitious than those which glory in Raffaele's birth. He was happy in his parentage and in his patrons, in his master and in his pupils, in his friends and in his rivals: the first misfortune of his life was its rapid and untimely close. He was late enough to profit by the example, early enough to feel the living influence of four of the greatest masters of his art, of Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Giorgione, and Fra Bartolomeo. The art of painting in oil had been introduced into Italy barely half a century before his birth; its technical difficulties were already mastered, but it still awaited a master's hand to develop its latent capabilities. His short life included the Augustan age of papal Rome, the age of its splendour and magnificence, if not of its power, and he died almost before the far-off sound of the rising storm had broken the religious calm, or foretold the coming miseries of Italy. The two pontiffs whom he served out-shone the most illustrious of their predecessors in their luxurious tastes and lavish patronage of the fine arts; and these arts still served the Church, not only with the grateful zeal of favoured children, but with the earnest devotion of undoubting faith.... In the age of Raffaele, while the rich and often graceful legends of the Catholic mythology still retained their ancient hold on the popular belief, the growing taste among the learned of the day for the literature and philosophy of ancient Greece had done much, by softening their early rudeness ere it chilled their early feeling, to mould them to the higher purposes of art. Christian art too, relinquishing at last her long attachment to traditional types and conventional treatment, was willing to exchange a fruitless opposition to the graces and beauties of ancient art, for a bold attempt to enlist them in her service."