Excerpt from The Work of Raffael: Reproduced in 275 Illustrations, With a Biographical Introduction, Abridged From Adolf Rosenberg Small as was Urbin'o, the birthplace of Raffael, it was yet the home of the princely family of the Dukes of Montefeltro. The most famous of the Dukes, Federigo II, was a good patron of art. The superb baronial castle he had built in Urbino was a palace as well as a fortress. On its building and decoration native sculptors and architects had worked for years. The Duke, however, pre ferred Dutch to Italian art, and it was to the Netherlands that he sent for the paintings, altar pieces and tapestry designs with which he decorated his magnificent residence. It can, therefore, be under stood why Giovanni Sant'i, the father of Raffael, who was also a painter, should have had no high esteem for a prince who sent abroad for what he might have obtained nearer home. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.