Italian painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was BOTD in 1483. Born in Urbino, where his father was a painter at the ducal court, he trained as a painter with Pietro Perugino, and began accepting commissions in his late teens. He worked for many years in Umbria and Florence, where he absorbed the influence of Leonardo da Vinci. Painting primarily religious scenes but drawing from classical art and architecture, his work was admired for its elegant composition, sophisticated use of perspective and vivid use of colour. An extraordinarily prolific artist, his best known works include The Wedding of the Virgin, Madonna of the Pinks, The Madonna of the Meadow and his portrait of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. In 1508, he moved to Rome, where he was commissioned by Pope Julius II to decorate the papal library in the Vatican Palace. The resulting frescoes, including the painting The School of Athens, are now considered his masterpieces. His 1512 portrait of Julius was also widely admired. After Julius’ death in 1513, Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael as the architect of St Peter’s Basilica, to the chagrin of rival painter Michelangelo. Most of his designs were either not constructed in his lifetime or were demolished in the Baroque era. Raphael’s last significant works were a series of ten “cartoons”, intended as designs for tapestries to hang in the Sistine Chapel, and the altarpieces The Holy Family and Transfiguration. Raphael never married and appears to have preferred the company of men. Art critics and historians have pointed to the homoerotic charge in his many portraits of beautiful young men as possible evidence of his homosexuality. He died in 1520 aged just 37. Now considered one of the greatest artists of the High Renaissance, his work has been a major influence on Western art.