The world is debtor to Vasari. He was not much of a painter and he
failed at architecture, but he made up for lack of skill by telling
all about what others were doing; and if his facts ever faltered,
his imagination bridged the break. He is as interesting as Plutarch,
as gossipy as Pepys, and as luring as Boswell.

A slim slip of a girl, selling thyme and mignonette out of a reed
basket, offered to show Vasari the birthplace of Raphael; and a
brown-cheeked, barefoot boy, selling roses on which the dew yet
lingered, volunteered a like service for me, three hundred years
later.

The house is one of a long row of low stone structures, with the
red-tile roof everywhere to be seen. Above the door is a bronze
tablet which informs the traveler that Raphael Sanzio was born here,
April Sixth, Fourteen Hundred Eighty-three. Herman Grimm takes three
chapters to prove that Raphael was not born in this house, and that
nothing is so unreliable as a bronze tablet, except figures. Grimm
is a painstaking biographer, but he fails to distinguish between
fact and truth. Of this we are sure, Giovanni di Sanzio, the father
of Raphael, lived in this house. There are church records to show
that here other children of Giovanni were born, and this very
naturally led to the assumption that Raphael was born here, also.

Just one thing of touching interest is to be seen in this house, and
that is a picture of a Mother and Child painted on the wall. For
many years this picture was said to be the work of Raphael; but
there is now very good reason to believe it was the work of
Raphael's father, and that the figures represent the baby Raphael