Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was one of the three great masters of the High Renaissance alongside Leonardo and Michelangelo. Unusually sweet-tempered and sociable in an era of temperamental geniuses, he produced work of extraordinary grace, clarity, and harmonious beauty. Trained in Urbino and Perugia, he arrived in Florence in 1504 and absorbed the innovations of Leonardo and Michelangelo with astonishing speed. Pope Julius II summoned him to Rome in 1508 to decorate the Vatican Stanze, where The School of Athens — placing the greatest philosophers of antiquity in an idealized classical space — became the defining image of Renaissance humanism. He died on his 37th birthday, having already achieved a lifetime of work.
