But although it be a matter of difficulty to account for this developement and union of rare talent at one particular period, we may however hope to trace the steps of a single individual to excellence; and I would wish to do so of Raffaello. Nature and fortune seemed to unite in lavishing their favours on this artist; the first in investing him with the rarest gifts of genius, the other in adding to these a singular combination of propitious circumstances. In order to illustrate our inquiry it will be necessary to observe him from his earliest years,[27] and to note the progress of his mind. He was born in Urbino in 1483; and if climate, as seems not improbable, have any influence on the genius of an artist, I know not a happier spot that could have been chosen for his birth, than that part of Italy which gave to architecture a Bramante, supplied the art of painting with a successor to Raffaello in Baroccio, and bestowed on sculpture the plastic hand of a Brandani, without referring to many less celebrated, but still deserving artists, who are the boast of Urbino and her state. The father of this illustrious artist was Giovanni di Santi,[28] or as he has been commonly called Giovanni Sanzio, an artist of moderate talents, and who could contribute but little to the instruction of his son; although it was no small advantage to have been initiated in a simple style, divested of mannerism. He made some further progress from studying the works of F. Carnevale, an artist of great merit, for the times in which he flourished; and being placed at Perugia, under Pietro, he soon became master of his style, as Vasari observes, and had then probably already formed the design of excelling him. I was informed in Città di Castello, that at the age of seventeen he painted the picture of S. Nicholas of Tolentino in the church of the Eremitani. The style was that of Perugino, but the composition differed from that of the age, being the throne of our Saviour surrounded by saints. The Beato (beatified saint) is there represented, while the Virgin and St. Augustine, concealed in part by a cloud, bind his temples with a crown; there are two angels at the right hand, and two at the left, graceful, and in different attitudes; with inscriptions variously folded, on which are inscribed some words in praise of S. Eremitano. Above is the Eternal Father surrounded by a majestic choir of angels. The actors of the scene appear to be in a temple, the pillars of which are ornamented in the minute and laboured style of Mantegna, and the ancient manner is still perceptible in the folds of the drapery, though there is an evident improvement in the design, as in the figure of Satan, who lies under the feet of the saint. This figure is free from the singular deformity with which the ancient painters represented him; and has the genuine features of an Ethiopian. To this picture another of this period may be added in the church of S.