This letter probably obtained him more civility than substantial benefit; as his various Florentine works attributed to this period were commissioned by private parties. Among these was Taddeo Taddei, correspondent of Bembo, and a well known friend of letters, for whom he painted the Madonna del Cardellino and another Holy Family, and of whose hospitalities and many favours he expresses a deep sense, in recommending him to his uncle's good offices at Urbino, whither the Florentine probably repaired to visit its famed court. Other kind friends and patrons were Lorenzo Nasi and Angelo Doni; but his chief object seems to have been the society and instructions of the best painters, which the acquaintance of his early master Perugino with Florence, as well as his own winning manners, must have facilitated. Leonardo da Vinci, whom Giovanni Sanzi couples with Perugino, as "Two youths of equal years and equal love," was then at the height of his fame, and in direct competition with Michael Angelo, the eventual rival of Raffaele, whose energetic genius was already striding forward on his ambitious career. Fra Bartolomeo was adapting their new and advanced style to the devotional feeling which hung around his cloister in the frescoes of Beato Angelico. Domenico Ghirlandaio was dead, but his mantle had fallen on a son Ridolfo, whom the young Sanzio selected as his favourite associate, to the mutual advantage of both. In such companionship did Raffaele study the grand creations of preceding painters; borrowing from them, or from living artists, ideas and expedients which his fertile genius reproduced with original embellishments. The influence of Da Vinci may be distinctly detected on some of his Madonnas and portraits of this period,--that of the Dominican monk on others, and on his general colouring; but the fresco of the former at S. Onofrio, and many works of the latter, prove that they reciprocated the obligation, by freely adopting his design. Early prepossessions as yet kept him exempt from the contagion of mythological compositions; but in portraiture he found a new and interesting field, and several admirable heads, produced at Florence, attest his great success, as a naturalist of the most elevated caste. [Illustration: _Alinari_ S. SEBASTIAN _After the picture by Timoteo Viti in the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino_]