Raphael's justly comes first in the list. His earliest Madonnas show
his love of natural scenery, in the charming glimpses of Umbrian
landscape, which form the background. These are treated, as Müntz
points out, with marked "simplicity of outline and breadth of design."
They are, however, but the beginning of the great things that were to
follow. The young painter's sojourn in Florence witnessed a marvellous
development of his powers. Here he was surrounded by the greatest
artists of his time, and he was quick to absorb into himself something
of excellence from them all. His fertility of production was amazing.
In a period of four years (1504-1508), interrupted by visits to
Perugia and Urbino, he produced about twenty Madonnas, in which we
may trace the new influences affecting him.

Leonardo da Vinci was, doubtless, his greatest inspiration, and it was
from this master-student of nature that the young man learned, with
new enthusiasm, the value of going directly to Nature herself. The
fruit of this new study is a group of lovely pastoral Madonnas, which
are entirely unique as Nature idyls. Three of these are among the
world's great favorites. They are, the Belle Jardinière (The Beautiful
Gardener), of the Louvre Gallery, Paris; the Madonna in Grünen (The
Madonna in the Meadow), in the Belvedere Gallery, Vienna; and the
Cardellino Madonna (The Madonna of the Goldfinch), of the Uffizi,
Florence.

We turn from one to another of these three beautiful pictures, always
in doubt as to which is the greatest. Fortunately, it is a question
which there is no occasion to decide, as every lover of art may be the
happy possessor of all three, in that highest mode of possession
attained by devoted study.