Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/60

52 having completed that, as one who had finished the great work which he had to accomplish, he touched the pencils no more, being shortly afterwards overtaken by death.

Having now described the works of this most excellent artist, I will not permit myself to consider it a labour to say somewhat for the benefit of those who practise our calling, respecting the manner of Raphael, before proceeding to the relation of such particulars as remain to be specified in regard to other circumstances of his life, and to those which relate to his death. In his childhood he had imitated the manner of his master, Pietro Perugino, but had greatly ameliorated the same, whether as regarded design, colouring, or invention: having done this, it then appeared to him that he had done enough, but when he had attained to a riper age he perceived clearly that he was still too far from the truth of nature. On becoming acquainted with the works of Leonardo da Vinci, who in the expression which he gave to his heads, whether male or female had no equal, and who surpassed all other painters in the grace and movement which he imparted to his figures; seeing these works, I say, Raphael stood confounded in astonishment and admiration: the manner of Leonardo pleased him more than any other that he had ever seen, and he set himself zealously to the study thereof with the* utmost zeal; by degrees therefore, abandoning, though not without great difficulty, the manner of Pietro Perugino, he endeavoured as much as was possible to imitate that of Leonardo. But whatever pains he took, and in spite of all