SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS. 249 



" He was full of the might of a noble nature." Raphael was 

 never married, but during the last ten years of his life his labors 

 were lightened and his genius stimulated by the love of " La 

 Fornarina," whose picture is the gem of the Barbarini Palace in 

 Rome, and for whom he provided liberally in his will. He was 

 buried, according to his own singular desire, in the Pantheon of 

 Rome, and with magnificent ceremonies. The power of Raphael 

 as a painter lay in his perfect mastery of the passions. There 

 was no shade of emotion or thought that he could not portray on 

 his canvas. Every face and every scene tells its own story better 

 than words can express it. The Sistine Madonna at Dresden, is 

 a marvel of spiritual power and sublimity. But the Transfigura- 

 tion of Christ on the Mount is now thought to be the finest 

 painting in the world. It was unfinished when the great painter 

 died, and when they laid out his body in state, they placed this 

 picture, such as it was, beside it, as the saddest evidence of the 

 untimely work that death had made. 



Andrea del Sarto so called from his father's trade, that of 

 a tailor, his real name being ANDREA VANUCCHI was born in 

 Florence in 1487, w r here also he died of the plague in 1531. He 

 earned a great reputation, both in oil and fresco, and was called 

 " the faultless." He is best known by his frescoes in the convent 

 of the Annunciata, in Florence ; the Madonna del Sacco being 

 the best. He was led into many errors of character and even 

 into a serious embezzlement by an unworthy wife. But he 

 bitterly repented, and it is charitably supposed that evil was not 

 in his nature. 



Correggio. ANTONIO ALLEGRI called Correggio from his 

 birthplace, a small town between Modena and Parma was born 

 in 1494, and died of a fever in his native place in 1534. But 

 little is known of his life beyond the fact that he was one of 

 those men who are always in need, no matter how much money 

 they earn. It is probable that he died in poverty and on account 

 of privations. The greater part of his work was done at Parma. 

 There are those wonderful paintings in the domes of San 

 Giovanni and the Cathedral, which show the extreme effects of 

 foreshortening, an art in which this painter has the highest rep- 



