Painter of high-flying children and high-flying child painter, Rafaello Sanzio was born in Urbino, Italy, where his artist father gave him lots of useful tips like how holding your brush up in front of your nose and squinting meaningfully makes rich patrons think that you know what you're on with and what useful things eggs are for binding one's pigments (not mention binding one's spaghetti carbonara).
Sometime after dad died, when Raphael was aged about 11, he set of for Perugia where he became an apprentice in the studio of pop's old mucker, Perugino, developing a style so similar to his master's that it caused modern day art buffs to bicker until the Cowper Madonnas came home about just who painted what until some bright spark decided (would you believe?) to 'digitally analyse' their respective brushstrokes, finally ascertaining that Raphael did the really pretty ones, which no doubt was a huge relief to all concerned.
In 1504, already on the way to becoming an artistic giant of his time, Raphael (8ft 6ins) went to Florence where he met those other two giants of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci (10ft 3ins) and Michelangelo Buonarriti (11ft 6ins... made the ceilings a doddle, or doodle) and painted lots of women called Madonna. In 1508 he received a call from no lesser pomposity than his oiliness Pope Julius II to come to Rome and paint some rooms and what not, which is where he stayed until his 37th birthday when malaria and a bleeding mad doctor finished him off, leaving his works to be finished off by his art mad pupils.
