In an æsthetic view, the paintings and drawings executed by Raffaele at Florence are of infinite importance, but it would lead us much too far to examine the progressive development and naturalist tendencies which they display. We have not attempted to separate his various residences there from 1504 to 1508; for during these three years and a half, that city may be regarded as his head-quarters, varied by visits to Perugia, Bologna, and Urbino, which we shall now notice. In 1505, he was summoned to the first of these cities to execute three altar-pictures; one of which, at Blenheim, has been beautifully engraved by Gruner[*180]; another adorns the Museo Borbonico; the third, representing the coronation of the Madonna, is in the Vatican. Of the last commission some curious particulars are preserved. The nuns of Monte Luce having selected the young Sanzio, on the report of several citizens and reverend fathers, who had seen his performances, agreed to give him for the picture 120 golden ducats, and to another artist, Berto, 80 more for the carved framework and cornice, including three predella subjects; 30 ducats of the price being paid in advance. Raffaele's impatience to return to his studies soon carried him again to Florence, and a new contract for execution of the work was made in 1516; but death had removed both the abbess and the artist ere it was fulfilled, and ten years more elapsed before the picture was terminated by his pupils. The earliest attempt of Raffaele upon fresco, in the church of S. Severo, at Perugia, is dated 1505; its chief interest arises from being a first and incompleted idea of the grand composition which, originating with Orcagna and Fra Angelico, he developed in the Disputa of the Vatican Stanze. Two years later he revisited Perugia, to paint for the Baglioni one of his noblest and most elaborate altar-pictures, which, indeed, may be regarded as his first important dramatic composition. Its subject was the Entombment; the many extant sketches for which, prove the care exercised upon the cartoon, which he prepared at Florence. It is now the chef-d'oeuvre of the Borghese Gallery, and its beautifully pure predella is preserved in the Vatican. The same subject was treated by Perugino, in, perhaps, the finest of his panel pictures, which now ornaments the Pitti Gallery. [Footnote *180: Now in the National Gallery.] [Illustration: _Alinari_ MARGHERITA "LA FORNARINA" _After the picture by Raphael called La Donna Velata in the Pitti Gallery, Florence_]