Raphael was born on April 6th, 1483 in the town of Urbino in central Italy where his father worked as an artist at the court of the local duke. On leaving Urbino in 1500, Raphael went first to Perugia where he served as an apprentice for 4 years before moving to Florence.
Raphael was fascinated and heavily influenced by the works of other great Renaissance artists like Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo but developed his own unique and highly expressive personal style of painting. During this period of his career, he produced a series of paintings of the Madonna and also became a well-known painter of portraits.
In 1508 at the age of just 25, Raphael moved to Rome and stayed in the city for the rest of his life. Here he soon found himself working for Pope Julius II and painted a series of frescoed walls in the papal palace. Raphael was not just an artist but also a poet, a draughtsman, and an architect and in 1514 he was appointed by Pope Leo X as the Vatican’s chief architect following the death of Donato Bramante.
