What attracts me to Raphael is the charm and beauty of so many of his works, particularly his drawings, his psychological understanding and the intelligence with which he gave visible form to the ideas and ideology of his patrons. That will take us into papal politics and the personalities of the two popes for whom he worked. The course will open with an examination of how Raphael shaped his distinctive personality as an artist as he drew on the art of his older contemporaries in Umbria and Florence. The later lectures will be thematic: Raphael's work in the Vatican Palace, for the Sistine Chapel, in the Villa Farnesina; his altarpieces and Madonnas and his insightful portraits. I will also touch on his architectural work. Thanks to prodigious hard work and brilliant management of a large workshop, Raphael was extraordinarily productive.