After this, Raphael appears to have quitted the school of Perugino, and to have commenced an independent career: he executed at this time some pictures in the neighbouring town of Citta di Castello. With all the features of the Umbrian School, they already show the freer impulse of his own mind,--a decided effort to individualize. The most excellent of these, and the most interesting example of this first period of Raphael's development, is the _Marriage of the Virgin_ (Lo Sposalizio), inscribed with his name and the date 1504, now in the Brera at Milan. With much of the stiffness and constraint of the old school, the figures are noble and dignified; the countenances, of the sweetest style of beauty, are expressive of a tender, enthusiastic melancholy, which lends a peculiar charm to this subject. In 1504 Raphael painted the two little pictures in the Louvre, _S. George_ and _S. Michael_ (Nos. 1501-2) for the Duke of Urbino. _The Knight Dreaming_, a small picture, now in the National Gallery (No. 213), is supposed to have been painted a year earlier. In the autumn of 1504 Raphael went to Florence. Tuscan art had now attained its highest perfection, and the most celebrated artists were there contending for the palm. From this period begins his emancipation [Illustration: PLATE VI.--PIETRO PERUGINO CENTRAL PORTION OF ALTAR-PIECE _National Gallery, London_] from the confined manner of Perugino's school; the youth ripens into manhood and acquires the free mastery of form. To this time belong the celebrated _Madonna del Granduca_, now in the Pitti Gallery, and another formerly belonging to the Duke of Terra Nuova, and now at Berlin (No. 247a). In the next year we find him employed on several large works in Perugia; these show for the first time the influence of Florentine art in the purity, fullness, and intelligent treatment of form; at the same time many of the motives of the Peruginesque school are still apparent. The famous _Cowper Madonna_, recently sold to an American for L140,000, also belongs to the year 1505, when the blending of the two influences resulted in a picture which has been extolled by the sanest of critics as "the loveliest of Raphael's Virgins." An altar-piece, executed for the church of the Serviti at Perugia, inscribed with the date 1506, is the famous _Madonna dei Ansidei_, purchased for the National Gallery from the Duke of Marlborough. Besides the dreamy religious feeling of the School of Perugia, we perceive here the aim at a greater freedom, founded on deeper study. Raphael was soon back in Florence, where he remained until 1508. The early paintings of this period betray, as might be expected, many reminiscences of the Peruginesque school, both in conception and execution; the later ones follow in all essential respects the general style of the Florentines.