It was painted for the Dei family as an altar-piece for their chapel in S. Spirito, Florence. The "St. Catherine" of the National Gallery was probably painted in 1507; its cartoon, pricked for transference, is in the Louvre. To the Florentine period belong some of his finest portraits, and it is especially in these that da Vinci's influence appears. The portraits of Angelo Doni and his wife Maddalena (Pitti) are vivid and carefully executed paintings, and the unknown lady with hard features (now in the Uffizi) is a masterpiece of noble realism and conscientious finish. A fine but much-restored portrait of Raphael by himself, painted at Florence, exists in the Uffizi; it represents him at a very early age, and was probably painted during the early part of his stay in Florence.
A series of rooms in the Vatican, over the Appartamenti Borgia, were already decorated with frescoes by Bonfigli, Perugino, Piero della Francesca, Andrea del Castagno, Signorelli and Sodoma; hut so rapidly had the taste of the time changed that Julius II. decided to re-cover the walls with paintings in the more developed style of Raphael. It was not without regret that Raphael saw the destruction of this noble series of frescoes. One vault, that of the Stanza dell' Incendio, painted by his master Perugino, he saved from obliteration; it still exists, well preserved, a most skilful piece of decorative work; and he also set his pupils to copy a number of portrait-heads in the frescoes of Piero della Francesca before they were destroyed.
The Stanza della Segnatura (papal signature room) was painted in 1509-11. . The first painting executed by Raphael in this room was the so-called Disputa, finished in 15(39. In its religious sentiment it far excels any of the later stanze paintings, retaining much of the sacred character of earlier Florentine and Umbrian art. As a scheme of decoration it appears to have been
suggested by some of the early apsidal mosaics. Gold is largely used while the later purely pictorial frescoes have little or none. The subject is the hierarchy of the church on earth and its glory in heaven.
The painting on the vault of this room is the next in date, and shows further transition towards the "Roman manner." In his treatment of the whole Raphael has been partly guided by the painting of Perugino's vault in the next room (the Stanza dell' Inceildio). The pictures are kept subordinate to the lines of the vault. A great part of the ground is gilt, marked with mosaic-like squares, a common practice with decorative painters. The princi pal medallions in each cell of this quadripartite vault are very graceful female figures, representing Theology, Science, Justice and Poetry. Smaller subjects are arranged in the intermediate spaces, and each has some special meaning in reference to the me dallion it adjoins; some of these are painted in warm monochrome to suggest bas-reliefs. The fine painting of the "Flaying of Marsyas" is interesting as showing Raphael's study of antique sculpture : the figure of Marsyas is a copy of a Roman statue. The very beautiful little picture of the "Temptation of Eve" recalls Albert Darer's treatment of that subject, though only vaguely. Much mutual admiration existed between Raphael and Darer : in 1515 Raphael sent the German artist a most masterly life study of two nude male figures (now at Vienna) ; on it is written in Albert Dilrer's beautiful hand the date and a record of its being a gift from Raphael. It is executed in red chalk, and was a study for two figures in the "Battle of Ostia." On the wall opposite the Disputa is the so-called School of Athens. The subject of this noble fresco, in contrast to that opposite, is "Earthly Knowledge," represented by an assembly of the great philosophers, poets and men of science of ancient Greece. The central figures are Plato and Aristotle, while below and on each side are groups arranged with the most consummate skill, including the whole "filosofica famiglia" of Dante (Infer. iv. 133-144), and a number of other leaders of thought, selected in a way that shows no slight acquaintance with the history of philosophy and science among the ancient Greeks. Many interest ing portraits are introduced—Bramante as the aged Archimedes, stooping over a geometrical diagram; a beautiful fair-haired youth on the left is Francesco Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino; and on the extreme right figures of Raphael himself and Sodoma are introduced. The stately building in which these groups are ar ranged is taken with modifications from Bramante's first design for St. Peter's.