Although he lived but thirty-seven years, Raphael gave to the world a vast amount of art treasure. Brought up in Urbino, where his father, Giovanni Santi, was poet as well as painter, he passed before he was fifteen under the direct influence of Timoteo Viti, who had worked at Bologna under Francesco Francia. Raphael became the pupil of Perugino at Perugia about 1500, and also worked as the assistant of Pintoricchio. His art being thus formed on the best Umbrian tradition, Raphael in October 1504 left Perugia for Florence, and it was only at that date that he began to acquire a distinctive style of his own. During his second or Florentine period he painted the _St. George and the Dragon_ (No. 1503), in which is seen the chivalrous knight mounted on a pure white steed; his lance is broken in his combat with the monster, and he is forced to use his sword, while the little Princess Cleodolinda flees in abject terror into the background. The very small panel of _St. Michael_ (No. 1502), which is a chessboard on the back, was painted for Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, and eventually passed into the collections of Cardinal Mazarin and Louis XIV. The _Madonna and Child_ which has come to be known as _La Belle Jardinière_ (No. 1496, Plate VII.) is rather later than the _Madonna del Gran’ Duca_ in the Pitti Palace, the _Cardellino Madonna_ in the Uffizi, and the _Ansidei Madonna_ in the National Gallery. It is one of the most famous of Raphael’s saintly and ideal Madonnas; the pose of the figures is easy, the treatment simple, the colour exquisite. The landscape background is poetic in feeling, and conveys the mood which makes this one of Raphael’s most pleasing creations. The thin feathery trees and the treatment of the Virgin’s hair are still Peruginesque, but the superiority of the pupil to the master is gradually making itself felt. The Infant Christ is standing on the right foot of His mother. Tradition says that Raphael entrusted to Ridolfo Ghirlandaio the task of painting in the blue of the Virgin’s garment. The drapery is apparently inscribed: VRB. RAPHAELLO MDVII. After working for four years in Florence, Raphael went in the summer of 1508 to Rome, where he achieved such a vast amount of work for Popes Julius II. and Leo X. His work was increased by his appointment, on the death of Bramante in 1514, as Architect of St. Peter’s and Inspector of Antiquities.