He lived ‘not like a painter, but like a prince’

RAPHAEL SANTI (or Sanzio) of Urbino was the epitome of the well-rounded Renaissance man, celebrated for his many talents as a painter, draughtsman, architect, poet and tapestry designer. A towering figure of the Italian Renaissance alongside contemporaries Leonardo da Vinci (about 1450–1519) and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), he echoed them in attracting the prestigious patronage of Popes Julius II and Leo X. He was also known for his taste for learned company and intellectual endeavours, which was relatively unusual among artists at the time.

Many of the anecdotes relating to Raphael’s life and (multiple) loves were recorded by artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) in his of 1550. Raphael was wealthy and successful in his own day, living, according to Vasari, ‘not like a painter, but like a prince’. His reputation as a great artist outlived him, especially in England, where Reynolds, president of the Royal Academy from 1768–92, proclaimed that: ‘The excellency of this extraordinary man lay in the