Excerpt from The Portfolio<br><br>At this model court Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, held a dis tinguished position,.both as a painter and a poet. Originally natives of Colbordolo, a village in the hills above the valley of the F oglia, the Santi saw their homes laid waste by an inroad of Sigismondo Malatesta in 1446. Four years later, fearing a second incursion of the enemy, they took shelter within the walls of Urbino. Here they carried on their trade as corn and oil dealers, and, in 1464, bought a house in one of the steep streets at the corner of the market - place, known at that time as the Contrada del Monte, to-day as the Contrada Raffaello. Giovanni, who was born before 1440, recalls the perils of his youth and the flames that consumed the paternal nest in his verses, and sighs over the ceaseless round of domestic cares, of all the ills that flesh is heir to, the most Wearisome, but which nevertheless have not hindered him from em bracing the splendid art of painting [a miméi/e e clarissz'ma 4716 AI pitmm, of which noble calling he does not blush to call himself the servant. Yet he seems to have been a fortunate and prosperous man. When he was about forty, he married Magia Ciarla, the daughter of an Urbino tradesman, who brought him a dowry of 150 florins, and at the death of his father, in 1485, inherited the chief part of his property in land and houses. By this time he was an artist of considerable reputation, although he still plied his trade in corn and ropes and oil, and carved images and gilded candelabra, as well as painted altar-pieces for the churches of Urbino.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.