Raphael . style,so the humanists had paved his way as re-gards the intellectual aspect of his marvellous faculty of rapid assimila-tion enabled him, on the one hand, toappropriate whatever he found worthy ofimitation in his precursors and contem-poraries, and thus to complete his techni-cal equipment at an age at which it wasgiven to few to have achieved mastery;whilst, on the other hand, his clear in-tellect, aided by the not entirely unmerce- PLATE III.—THE MADONNA DELLA SEDIA The Madonna **of the Chair, one of the most characteristicand deservedly popular of Raphaels numerous versio
Raphael . style,so the humanists had paved his way as re-gards the intellectual aspect of his marvellous faculty of rapid assimila-tion enabled him, on the one hand, toappropriate whatever he found worthy ofimitation in his precursors and contem-poraries, and thus to complete his techni-cal equipment at an age at which it wasgiven to few to have achieved mastery;whilst, on the other hand, his clear in-tellect, aided by the not entirely unmerce- PLATE III.—THE MADONNA DELLA SEDIA The Madonna **of the Chair, one of the most characteristicand deservedly popular of Raphaels numerous versions of theVirgin and Child motif, belongs to the masters full maturity, andwas painted during his sojourn in Rome, at the time when he wasoccupied with the stupendous task of decorating the Statize of theVatican. It would be difficult to find in the whole history of arta more pleasing solution of the problem presented by a figure com-position in the round. The picture is now in the Pitti Palace, RAPHAEL 25 nary desire to please his patrons, helpedhim to carry out with triumphant successthe ideas evolved by the keenest thinkersof his time. To doubt that the generalidea, and perhaps a good many of thedetails, of such a stupendous work as thefresco decoration of the Stanze at the Vati-can, had originated in Raphaels head, isnot to detract from his greatness. He wasa boy in his early teens when he enteredhis first masters bottega. He was a youthof twenty-five when he started on his greattask; and the intervening years had beenso completely filled with the study of hiscraft and with the execution of importantcommissions, that it is impossible to be-lieve he could have found much leisure forbook-learning. And such learning was in-dispensable for the conception of that elabo-rate scheme with all its historical allusionsand allegorical imagery. The wonder isthat Raphael could so completely enter 26 RAPHAEL into the suggestions made to him fromvarious sources, and to weave th
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