Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga oil on wood, 52.50 x 37.30 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, 1503 – 1504 ca. Like the painting depicting the Young Man with an Apple, this painting dates from Raffaello’s younger years, when he attended and served the court of Urbino. Raffaello was still just a child when his father Giovanni Santi, who under Duke Federico was the intellectual of the court and trusted on all matters artistic, held a theatrical play to celebrate the wedding of Guidobaldo, the Duke of Urbino’s heir, to Elisabetta Gonzaga. The painting arrived in the Medici collections, and thence to the Uffizi, as part of the dowry for Vittoria della Rovere’s wedding in 1631. It depicts the young woman dressed richly in clothes woven with gold, characterised by a refined, aristocratic elegance. A headdress in the portentous form of a scorpion rests on the lady’s forehead. The depiction of the landscape in the background is particularly poetic, with the light of the rising sun touching the strips of cloud in the sky and the rocky path over to the right. Young Man with an Apple painting on wood, 47.40 x 35.30 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, 1503 – 1504 ca. Arriving in Florence from Urbino as part of Vittoria della Rovere’s dowry upon her marriage to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, this painting probably depicts a member of the Urbino court, perhaps the teenaged figure of Francesco Maria della Rovere himself. The boy is presented to us in the role of Paris. Like the hero in the myth, he holds the symbolic fruit in his right hand, destined for the most beautiful of the ladies who we must imagine competing before him. Elegance, exquisite refinement, and clear inspiration from Flemish artists such as Memling and Van Eyck - these are the distinctive characteristics of this small and valuable work, which demonstrates the young Raffaello’s ongoing contact with the Urbino court before his move to Florence. Self-portrait painting on wood, 47.30 x 34.80 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, 1505 – 1506 ca. Raffaello was handsome, with a lovable, gentle beauty that charmed those around him. The sources tell us so, as do the testimonials of his contemporaries, and it is also shown in his surviving self-portraits; this one in the Uffizi, and the other which forms part of the School of Athens fresco in the Stanza della Segnatura. With good looks and a kind disposition, Raffaello was liked by everyone, from the Pope and the princes of Italy and Europe to each one of his many students. This, in total unison, is how chroniclers, historians and contemporary witnesses describe him. Raffaello loved women and was loved by them in return, and this too was an aspect of his temperament that made him likable to all. Raffaello sends us this image of himself, a man in the prime of his youth at around twenty-four years of age. The technique here is lean and essential, the paint is built up with light, almost transparent layers. The painter looks out at us while dressed for work; his clothes are dark, save for the pure white stripe of linen shirt that crosses his neck. It is clear how this face captured the public imagination, accompanying Raffaello’s universal good fortune like an icon of grace. Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn oil on wood transferred to canvas, 67 x 56 cm Rome, Galleria Borghese, 1505 – 1506 ca. This painting dates from the middle of Raffaello’s Florentine years. With the extraordinary mimetic capability that had characterised him since his very first efforts, the young master, having arrived from Urbino, looked to the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo – drawing more upon the latter (in his aerial softness, his speculative intelligence, his absolute humanism) than the former. Raffaello looked to the “labours of the modern masters” but also to those of “the old”, as Giorgio Vasari would write. He looked to the painters of the San Marco school (Mariotto Albertinelli and Fra Bartolomeo), to Masaccio’s work at Santa Maria del Carmine, to Beato Angelico, to the melodious blue and white radiance of Luca della Robbia’s Madonnas. In this work, which depicts a young and beautiful woman whose figure stands out against a vast, luminous landscape, the painter’s source of inspiration is primarily Leonardo (the Leonardo of the Mona Lisa and Lady with an Ermine). The woman’s pose, the aerial perspective and also the symbolism remind us of Leonardo. Indeed, the unicorn, which is shown held in the woman’s lap like a kitten, is a mythical creature symbolising feminine virtues such as chastity and purity. Portrait of a Young Woman (La Muta) painting on wood, 64 x 48 cm Urbino, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, 1505 – 1506 ca. Previously in the Uffizi (inv. 1890 DE237), this piece has since been entrusted to the safekeeping of the Galleria Nazionale in Urbino. The identity of the woman depicted here is unknown despite the many theories advanced by critics, none of them convincing. Together with confirmation of the portrait’s attribution to Raffaello, the piece was given a name that has stayed with it ever since: La Muta. As a title it is well suited to the spiritual “non-eloquence”, the air of mystery that hangs about this superb portrait. The painting dates from the middle of Raffaello’s Florentine period, around 1505-06, a time when he was deeply observant of Leonardo’s work. Portrait of Agnolo Doni painting on wood, 65 x 47.70 cm Florence, Galleria Palatina, 1506 1506 saw the marriage of the century celebrated in Florence, that of Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi, the heirs of two of the richest and most powerful families in the city. Florence’s great artists competed to offer the couple the best examples of their art. Michelangelo painted the tondo of the Holy Family that resides today in the Uffizi, universally known as the Doni Tondo. The young Raffaello, who had just turned twenty-three and had lived in Florence for two years, used two medium-sized panels (65 x 48 cm) to produce portraits of the married couple. This is the diptych now preserved in the Galleria Palatina of the Palazzo Pitti. On the reverse of both paintings, a master of the early sixteenth century, identified by Federico Zeri as the so-called “Master of Serumido”, has illustrated stories from myth to convey the auspicious theme of conjugal fertility. On close inspection of the diptych, we can see the legacy of The Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesca, kept today at the Uffizi, which Raffaello studied in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino. Raffaello’s concept here is to set the two portraits, not in profile as in the Piero della Francesca work but facing forwards, against an immense landscape of high skies, clouds dissolving into the blue, and infinitely distant prospects, so that the viewer quivers at the vastness of creation. Portrait of Maddalena Strozzi painting on wood, 65 x 45.80 cm Florence, Galleria Palatina, 1506 1506 saw the marriage of the century celebrated in Florence, that of Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi, the heirs of two of the richest and most powerful families in the city. Florence’s great artists competed to offer the couple the best examples of their art. Michelangelo painted the tondo of the Holy Family that resides today in the Uffizi, universally known as the Doni Tondo. The young Raffaello, who had just turned twenty-three and had lived in Florence for two years, used two medium-sized panels (65 x 48 cm) to produce portraits of the married couple. This is the diptych now preserved in the Galleria Palatina of the Palazzo Pitti. On the reverse of both paintings, a master of the early sixteenth century, identified by Federico Zeri as the so-called “Master of Serumido”, has illustrated stories from myth to convey the auspicious theme of conjugal fertility. On close inspection of the diptych, we can see the legacy of The Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesca, kept today at the Uffizi, which Raffaello studied in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino. Raffaello’s concept here is to set the two portraits, not in profile as in the Piero della Francesca work but facing forwards, against an immense landscape of high skies, clouds dissolving into the blue, and infinitely distant prospects, so that the viewer quivers at the vastness of creation. Raffaello’s homage to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is clear in the positioning of Maddalena Strozzi, but it is with a Flemish sensibility that the painter’s eye captures every detail of the subject’s coiffure, the smooth sheen of the pearl, the texture of the cloth, the transparency of the silk, the light shining on the marbled satin of the bodice. Woman with a Veil painting on canvas, 82 x 60.50 cm Florence, Galleria Palatina, 1512 – 1513 ca. From among Raffaello’s loves, a true romantic legend arose. Margherita, who was the daughter of a baker (fornaio in Italian) and who has thus gone down in history as La Fornarina, was Raffaello’s favourite model and his lover. We recognise her features in the Sistine Madonna in Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie, and in the panel painting kept in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica at Palazzo Barberini in Rome. The latter painting is itself known as La Fornarina, is signed and can be dated to around 1516, but is probably original only in part. Entirely original, however, is the canvas kept at the Galleria Palatina in Florence, documented in grand ducal collections since the early 17th century.