Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio embodied the serene ideal of the High Renaissance. Trained in Urbino and Perugia before arriving in Florence, he absorbed Leonardo's sfumato and Michelangelo's anatomy, then synthesised both into a language of luminous balance. Julius II summoned him to Rome at 25 to fresco the Stanze of the Vatican, where he painted the School of Athens — an entire philosophy of learning made architectural. He ran the largest workshop of the era and, at his death aged 37, all of Rome mourned.