Early life and work
Moving to Florence when he was around 20, he was exposed to Leonardo da Vinci, "whom he never ceased to admire as a mentor and father figure", and to Michelangelo, just eight years his senior, "with whom he later had a stormy and competitive relationship." (Leonardo died in 1519, one year before Raphael, but Michelangelo lived until 1564.) Raphael learned from both men, but while he made use of their exploration of human anatomy, he added sentiment to his paintings.

Florentine period
At the end of 1508, he moved to Rome (at the urging of Donato Bramante, the architect of St. Peter's)
According to Vasari, his premature death on Good Friday (April 6, 1520, his 37th birthday) was caused by a night of excessive sex with her, after which he fell into a fever and, not telling his doctors that this was its cause, was given the wrong cure, which killed him. Whatever the cause, in his acute illness Raphael had the wit to receive the last rites, and put his affairs in order. He took the care to dictate his will, in which he left sufficient funds for her care, entrusted to his loyal servant Bavera. Vasari underlines that Raphael was also born on a Good Friday, in 1483, on 27 or 28 March. At his request, he was buried in the Pantheon.
Roman period
Raphael made no prints himself, but entered into a collaboration with Marcantonio Raimondi to produce engravings to Raphael's designs, which created many of the most famous Italian prints of the century, and was important in the rise of the reproductive print. A total of about fifty prints were made; some were copies of Raphael's paintings, but other designs were apparently created only to be made into prints. Raphael made preparatory drawings, many of which survive, for Raimondi to translate into engraving. The two most famous original prints to result from the collaboration were Lucretia and The Massacre of the Innocents. Outside Italy, reproductive prints by Raimondi and others were the main way that Raphael's art was experienced until the twentieth century.

Printmaking
The inscription in his marble sarcophagus, a distichon written by Pietro Bembo, reads: "Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci, rerum magna parens et moriente mori." Meaning: "Here lies that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be outdone while he lived, and when he died, feared herself to die."
Raphael was highly admired by his contemporaries. When compared to Michelangelo and Titian, he was sometimes considered inferior; at the same time, it was maintained that none of them shared all the qualities possessed by Raphael, "ease" in particular.

Legacy

Chronology of main works

Resurrection of Christ (The Kinnaird Resurrection) (1499-1502) - Oil on wood, 52 x 44 cm, São Paulo Art Museum, São Paulo, Brazil
Angel (fragment of the Baronci Altarpiece) (1500-1501) - Oil on wood, 31 x 27 cm, Pinacoteca Civica Tosio Martinengo, Brescia, Italy
Angel (fragment of the Baronci Altarpiece) (1500-1501) - Oil on wood, 57 x 36 cm, Louvre, Paris
Holy Family with Madonna of the Veil (1500-1510) - Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples
St. Sebastian (1501-1502) - Oil on wood, 43 x 34 cm, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo
The Crowning of the Virgin (Oddi Altar) (c. 1501-1503) - Oil on canvas, 267 x 163 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome
The Annunciation (Oddi Altar, predella) (c. 1501-1503) - Oil on canvas, 27 x 50 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome
The Adoration of the Magi (Oddi Altar) (c. 1501-1503) - Oil on canvas, 27 x 150 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome
The Presentation in the Temple (Oddi Altar, predella) (c. 1501-1503) - Oil on canvas, 27 x 50 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome
Madonna Solly (Madonna with the Child) (1500-1504) - Oil on tablet, 53 x 38 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Mond Crucifixion (Città di Castello Altarpiece) (1501-1503) - Oil on wood, 281 x 165 cm, National Gallery, London
Three Graces (c. 1501-1505) - Musée Condé, Chantilly, France
St. Michael (c. 1501) - Louvre, Paris
Portrait of a Man (c. 1502) - Oil on wood, 45 x 31 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome
Connestabile Madonna (1502-1503) - Tempera on wood, 17,5 x 18 cm, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg
Madonna and Child (1503) - Oil on wood, 55 x 40 cm, Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena
The Marriage of the Virgin (1504) - Oil on roundheaded panel, 174 x 121 cm, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
Vision of a Knight (1504) - Egg tempera on poplar, 17.1 x 17.1 cm, National Gallery, London
St. George (1504) - Oil on tablet, 31 x 27 cm, Louvre, Paris
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (Colonna Altarpiece), (1504-1505) - Tempera and gold on wood, 172,4 x 172,4 cm (main panel), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Portrait of Perugino (c. 1504) - Tempera on wood, 57 x 42 cm, Uffizi, Florence Early works

Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga (c. 1504) - Oil on wood, 52,9 x 37,4 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Portrait of Pietro Bembo (c. 1504) - Oil on wood, 54 x 69 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
Self-portrait (1504-1506) -
Madonna of the Grand Duke (c. 1505) - Oil on wood, 84 x 55 cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence
The Ansidei Madonna (The Madonna between St. John Baptist and St. Nicholas of Bari) (c. 1505-1506) - Oil on poplar, 274 x 152 cm, National Gallery, London
Young Man with an Apple (1505) - Oil on wood, 47 x 35 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Christ Blessing (1505) - Oil on wood, 30 x 25 cm, Pinacoteca Civica Tosio Martinengo, Brescia, Italy
Madonna Terranova (1504-1505) - Oil on wood, 87 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
The Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1505) - Uffizi, Florence
Madonna del Prato (The Madonna of the Meadow) (c. 1505) – Oil on wood, 113 x 88 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
St. George and the Dragon (1505-1506) - Oil on wood, 28.5 x 21.5 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington
La Donna Gravida (1505-1506) - Oil on wood, 66 x 52 cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence
Portrait of Agnolo Doni (1505-1507) - Oil on wood, 63 x 45 cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence
Portrait of Maddalena Doni (1505-1507) - Oil on wood, 63 x 45 cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence
Madonna of the Pinks (1506)
Young Woman with Unicorn (1506, disputed) - Oil on canvas, 65 x 51 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome
Madonna with Beardless St. Joseph (1506) - Tempera on canvas transferred from wood, 74 x 57 cm, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg
Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1507) - Oil on wood, 72 x 55 cm, National Gallery, London
Canigiani Holy Family (1507) - Oil on wood, 132 x98 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
La belle jardinière (1507) - Louvre, Paris
The Deposition of Christ (The Entombment) (1507-1508) - Oil on wood, 184 x 176 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome
The Three Theological Virtues (tryptic) (1507) - Oil on wood, 16 x 44 cm (each), Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome
Portrait of a Young Woman (La Muta) (1507-1508) - Oil on wood, 64 x 48 cm, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino
The Tempi Madonna (Madonna with the Child) (1508) - Alte Pinakothek, Munich
La Madonna de Bogota (Madonna with the Child) (1507) - NY Bank Volt, New York Roman period

Renaissance painting
Italian Renaissance
Western painting
History of painting