Raphael

Raphael was an Italian Renaissance painter and architect whose 12-year career produced multiple works that established him as one of the three foundational figures of the Italian High Renaissance — alongside Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. He was born Raffaello Sanzio (also Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino) on April 6, 1483, in Urbino, Italy, into a court-painting family — his father Giovanni Santi was a court painter to the Federico III da Montefeltro of Urbino. His father died when Raphael was 11, and he was apprenticed to the Umbrian master painter Pietro Perugino.

His period was his 1500–1504 work in Perugino's Umbrian workshop, during which he developed his distinctive style — graceful figural composition, balanced classical-architectural compositions, and harmonious color. He moved to Florence in 1504, where he absorbed the Florentine influences of Leonardo da Vinci (his Madonna of the Meadow 1505–1506) and Michelangelo (whose Sistine Chapel ceiling work he visited continuously during the 1508–1512 painting period).

The Roman period (1508–1520) was the peak of his career. Pope Julius II commissioned him in 1508 to paint the Stanze di Raffaello — four interconnected papal-apartment rooms in the Vatican Apostolic Palace. The Stanza della Segnatura (1508–1511) produced his The School of Athens — the fresco depicting Greek philosophers Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and others in an architectural setting. The painting has been continuously cited as one of the foundational works of Western Renaissance art.

Other Roman-period works included the Sistine Madonna (c. 1513–1514), the Transfiguration (1516–1520, his final major painting, completed shortly before his death), and the Vatican tapestry cartoons (1515–1516). He died unexpectedly on April 6, 1520, at age 37, in Rome — the cause of death has been variously attributed to fever, pneumonia, or syphilis. He was buried in the Pantheon in Rome — an unprecedented honor for a 37-year-old painter.

His name Raphael is from the Hebrew Rapha'el meaning "God has healed" — referring to the archangel Raphael of Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Raphael has been continuously climbing in American naming since the 2000s.