Madonna of Loreto

c. 1504 – c. 1508 · Workplace

Florence

1507

Meets Donato Bramante

Raphael met the architect Donato Bramante, by an unproven account his relative. Bramante became his adviser and patron and later recommended him to Pope Julius II as the best candidate for work in the Vatican.

1508

Moves to Rome at the invitation of Julius II

The new pope, Julius II, invited Raphael to Rome, perhaps at the suggestion of his architect Bramante, a distant relative of the artist. Unlike Michelangelo, kept waiting for months after his summons, Raphael was immediately commissioned to fresco what was to become the pope's private library, a far larger commission than any he had had before.

1508–1520 · Workplace

Rome

c. 1510

Marcantonio Raimondi engraves his designs

Raphael made no prints himself, but his pupils and assistants, above all Marcantonio Raimondi, engraved his drawings; around 1510 came “The Judgement of Paris”. The prints were sold in street shops and bought by maiolica painters, jewellers and carvers.

1511

Under the spell of Michelangelo's ceiling

According to Vasari, Bramante let Raphael into the Sistine Chapel secretly, and while painting the Stanza he was clearly influenced by Michelangelo's ceiling, as in his portrait of Michelangelo himself as Heraclitus in “The School of Athens”. Michelangelo accused him of plagiarism and years later complained that “everything he knew about art he got from me”.