Rafael Santi House Museum

On one of the streets of Urbino in Italy, the house was preserved in which the artist Rafael Santi was born and lived until the age of fourteen. The street has a typical characteristic for this city: it moves away from the central square, gradually narrowing and becoming more winding. The house is three-story, with a gable roof with protruding beams. The windows are rectangular in shape, with flat gables and a portal. On the sides are two small windows. Now in this building is open the house-museum of Rafael Santi ^[1] .

The house was built in the XV century ^[3] .

Rafael Santi's father, Giovanni Santi bought this house in 1460. The house is small. On the second floor Giovanni Santi lived with his family, on the first floor there was his workshop and a small patio. Under the portico in our time you can see a small column with a picture of a mortar, which was used at that time for the preparation of paints. Santi's house was not far from the Ducal Castle ^[2] .

On the second floor of the Rafael Santi House-Museum there is a fresco "Madonna and Child", made by his father. Researchers suggest that it was in this room in 1483 that Raphael was born. There are also suggestions that the painting depicts the artist’s mother, Maggie Chiarla, and he himself in infancy. This theory is supported by the fact that in a middle-class house without grand staircases and high ceilings, with the most ordinary facade, there was such a fresco and it would be logical if this fresco was related to the family living here. The fresco room has a low ceiling. To see the mural, you need to pay attention to a small niche in which you can see a portrait of a woman holding a sleeping baby in her arms, while she is sitting on a bench and reading a book. The woman is wearing a dark blue cloak, her hair is gathered ^[2] .

In 1635, the house-museum was bought by the Italian engineer Muzio Oddi ^[3] .

The Academy of Raphael in the XIX century bought this house and housed the artist’s house-museum in it. As a result of cooperation between private individuals and government agencies, works of art appeared in the building - sculptures, paintings, ceramics, wooden furniture. Here you can see copies of his paintings ^[4] , as well as the artist's work, performed by him in his early years ^[2] .

• Babkin Igor Vladimirovich. EUROPEAN MOSAIC: Historical and architectural overview of European countries. - 2011 .-- 552 s.
• Constantino d'Orazio. Mysterious Raphael. - Litres, 2018 .-- 300 s. - ISBN 9785041352783 .