Thus it cannot but be considered among the greatest of Raphael’s advantages, that he had opportunities of studying in both the schools alluded to; and in both, he of all men knew or felt what was fittest to be imitated. The depth and fervour of expression which he imbibed from the masters he first contemplated, and which he never relinquished, was improved and enlivened by the accurate study of the forms and varieties of nature to which the Florentines were devoted: again, before Raphael arrived in Florence, Lionardo da Vinci had laid the foundation of that profound anatomical knowledge, the only true means of representing action, which was afterwards carried to its greatest results in the works of Michael Angelo. The celebrated Cartoons of both these great designers were the object of study and admiration in Florence at the time Raphael resided there, although they were not completed quite so soon as might be inferred from a passage in Vasari. The importance of considering and accounting for the earliest tendency of Raphael’s feeling, will be apparent when we remember that it reappeared in his later, and even in his latest, works. The Dispute of the Sacrament, his altar-pieces, and even the Cartoons, are not Florentine in their taste, but are rather allied to the school from which he derived his first impressions. From 1500, or perhaps a little earlier, to 1504–5, Raphael was employed at Perugia, or at Città di Castello (a township midway between Perugia and Urbino); his works in the latter place must, however, have been executed after he became a pupil of Perugino, as they clearly evince an imitation of that painter’s manner. An altar-piece, originally in the church of S. Niccola di Tolentino, at Città di Castello, is now in the Vatican; a Crucifixion from the church of S. Domenico, in the same place, is in the Fesch collection at Rome; and the celebrated Marriage of the Virgin, from the church of S. Francesco, is at Milan. The last, which was copied almost without alteration from a painting of Perugino, has the date 1504, and immediately precedes Raphael’s first visit to Florence.