We have then in this masterpiece of draughtsmanship an example, not of Raffaello in a Michelangelising mood, but of Michelangelo for once condescending to surpass Raffaello on his own ground of loveliness and rhythmic grace.

They possessed designs bequeathed by Raffaello for its decoration, and Leo, very rightly, decided to leave it in their hands.

Raffaello of Urbino, though he chose to strive in rivalry with Michelangelo, was wont to say that he thanked God for having been born in his days, since he learned from him a manner very different from that which his father, who was a painter, and his master, Perugino, taught him.

It is somewhat painful to think that Michelangelo could have lent a willing ear to the malignant babble of a man so much inferior to himself in nobleness of naturehave listened when Sebastiano taunted Raffaello as "Prince of the Synagogue," or boasted that a picture of his own was superior to "the tapestries just come from Flanders."

We have then in this masterpiece of draughtsmanship an example, not of Raffaello in a Michelangelising mood, but of Michelangelo for once condescending to surpass Raffaello on his own ground of loveliness and rhythmic grace.

The date is twenty-two years after the death of Raphael; but, as the manufacturer was a fellow-townsman of that celebrated artist, the inscription, taken in connexion with the anecdote of Vasari already mentioned, is interesting, as throwing light on the association of the name of Raffaello with this species of ware.