As is so true of the men of this time as a rule, all three of these men were much more than painters. Raphael died at the early age of thirty-seven, yet he reached distinction as an architect and as an archaeologist, besides accomplishing his great painting. Leonardo insisted on not being thought of as a painter, but as an engineer and architect, though he has painted the greatest portrait ever made and beat Michelangelo once in a competition in sculpture. Michelangelo reached supremacy in all four of the greatest modes of art. He is a painter second to none in all that he attempted, he is the { 2} greatest sculptor since the time of the Greeks, he is one of the greatest architects of all time, yet with all this, by what might seem almost an impossible achievement, he was one of the greatest of poets and has written sonnets that only Dante and Shakespeare have equalled. These men of Columbus' Century not only were never narrow specialists but quite the contrary; they were extremely varied in their interests and felt in contradiction to what seems the prevalent impression in our time that such breadth of interest only increased their powers of expression in anything that they attempted.
Of the three probably Raphael has had the widest popular influence. His paintings have all unconsciously to most people colored and visualized for them the Biblical scenes, especially of the New Testament, and since his time painters have been greatly influenced by his compositions. He has deeply affected all the world of art and as for several centuries now some of his greatest works have been held outside of Italy, they have been producing their effect and giving artists the thought of how well deepest vision could be expressed.
This man, who by universal consent was the greatest painter that ever lived, was about nine years old when Columbus discovered America. According to tradition he died on his birthday at the age of thirty-seven in 1520. In less than two decades of active artist life he had painted a series of pictures that were a triumph even in that glorious period of marvellous artistic accomplishment. They have been the subject of loving study and affectionate admiration ever since. Many of them have been the despair of the artists who came after him. But Raphael is not an artists' artist in any exclusive sense of the word. He is as popular an idol with those who confess to having no critical knowledge of art as he is the hopeless model of those whose lives are devoted to art.