affairs were in much confusion.[1] While thus abiding in Urbino, he painted two pictures of the Madonna for Guidobaldo of Montefeltro, who was then Captain-general of the Florentines; these pictures are both small, but are exceedingly beautiful examples of Raphael’s second manner; they are now in the possession of the most illustrious and most excellent Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino.[2] For the same noble, the master executed another small picture, representing Christ praying in the garden, with three of the Apostles, who are sleeping at some distance,[3] and which is so beautifully painted that it could scarcely be either better or otherwise were it even in miniature. After having been long in the possession of Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, this picture was presented by the most illustrious lady, his consort, the Duchess Leonora, to the Venetians, Don Paolo Giustiniano and Don Pietro Quirini, brothers of the Holy Hermitage of Camaldoli, and was placed by them, like a relic or sacred thing, in the apartments of the principal of that Hermitage, where it remains, honoured both as a memorial of that illustrious lady and as being from the hand of Raphael of Urbino.
Having completed these works and arranged his affairs, Raphael returned to Perugia, where he painted a picture of Our Lady with San Giovanni Battista and San ISiiccolo, for the Chapel of the Ansidei Family, in the Church of the Servites:[4] and at the Monastery of San Severo, a small Convent of the Order of Camaldoli, in the same city, he painted a fresco for the Chapel of Our Lady. The subject of this work is Christ in Glory, with God the Father, surrounded by Angels, and six figures of Saints seated,
- ↑ For various details respecting this period of Raphael’s life, see Passavant, Rafael von Urbino und sein Vater, &c.
- ↑ The authorities in this question are inclined to believe that one of these pictures is now in the Imperial Gallery of St. Petersburg; the other is said to be in England. Leclanche suggests that these may be the Madonnas engraved by Crozat.
- ↑ This work, which belongs to those executed in the early manner of the master, is now in Rome, in the possession of the Prince Gabrielli,— Passavant.
- ↑ Now in the possession of the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim; it bears the date 1505; on the Predella is the preaching of John the Baptist, but this part of the work is or was in the colleetion of Lord Lansdowne.
