PLATE I.—THE ANSIDEI MADONNA. Frontispiece

(In the National Gallery, London)

Better than any other picture by Raphael, this important altar-piece shows the precociousness of Raphael's genius, for it was painted at Perugia in 1506, when the master had scarcely passed into the twenty-third year of his life. He had then just returned from Florence, but, probably to humour his patrons, the Ansidei family, he reverted in this picture once again to the formal manner of his second master, Perugino. The "Ansidei Madonna" has the distinction of being the most costly picture at the National Gallery—it was purchased in 1885 from the Duke of Marlborough for £70,000.