I'll admit it: I know, love, and prefer the artists of the Early Renaissance like Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, and Fra Lippo Lippi. Maybe that's due to my early academic training as a medievalist. Lately, though, I have embarked on a serious study of the great artists High Renaissance and beyond and, as always, the more I learn the more I appreciate, enjoy, and admire.
The first of these masters that I'm starting to finally "get" is Raphael Sanzio. He was so famous and
beloved even during his lifetime that he began to be referred to by his first name only--like some celebrities today. His paintings, especially his Madonnas, are among the most reproduced works of art (I recognize many as the pictures on my cherished collection of "holy cards" the nuns at my grade school gave as gifts and rewards).
The son of a court painter at Urbino, Raphael showed artistic talent early and probably first trained at the workshop of Perugino. He moved to Florence in 1503 when he was only 20 years old and already considered a master. At that time Florence was the center of the the art world where Michelangelo was working on the David and Leonardo da Vinci on the Mona Lisa.
Both painters influenced the young Raphael. While Da Vinci became a mentor and friend, Michelangelo soon became a rival--especially when they both lived and worked in Rome where they vied for commissions from the Vatican. Michelangelo, eight year Raphael's senior, once went so far as to complain that "everything he knew about art, he got from me," nastiness from a sore loser, it seems, because Raphael often received most lucrative and desirable commissions.
His paintings do combine the sculptural grandeur of Michelangelo and the pyramid composition and lighting effects of Da Vinci, particularly in his use of extremely soft shading instead of line to delineate forms and features, a technique called sfumato. (You can see all this in the very Leonardo-esque Madonna of the Goldfinch,above.)
But Raphael was no mere copyist. He achieved mastery of all the Renaissance techniques, subjects, and ideas and developed them with grace and ease. In many ways he embodied the ideal of the artist for centuries, until the rebellion against tradition by modern artists.
Raphael broke away from tradition in his own day, by eschewing the love of detail so characteristic in the
works of the early Renaissance. In his paintings, the human figures are central and backgrounds are shadowy and undefined, as in this portrait of Pope Julius II. His subjects are incredibly life-like and full of complex emotion. His flowing style creates a homogeneous and easily intelligible whole, unlike the symbolic puzzles of earlier painters.
Raphael died of a mysterious fever--at the time physicians blamed his illness
on his
"erotic excesses"-- on his thirty-seventh birthday in 1520.
There's a terrific novel called The Ruby Ring
by Diane Haeger that chronicles the story of Raphael's great love for Margherita Luti, a baker's daughter who became his mistress, muse, and greatest model. It's a wonderful story in which Haeger weaves accurate historical detail with a delicious and moving story. Reading it helped me to grasp the man(that's his self-portrait on the right) and the painter as well as the turbulent times he lived in. I highly recommend it.
We'll see several of Raphael's paintings on Time of Your Life Tours Artful Tour of Florence and Venice this fall, and I'll be seeing them with new eyes.
aromatic, lightly sweet wine is a delicious way to end a meal. 
True Vin Santo can be quite expensive and what you find in many restaurants (or for under ten euro per liter in stores) is probably not the real thing but fortified sweet wine. We have found we like this fine for dunking, and adore the expensive true wine for sipping. 
