Raphael's birthplace

The house where the painter was born

In the steep street that bears his name, which climbs from Piazza della Repubblica towards the upper part of Urbino, stands the house where Raffaello Sanzio, Raphael, one of the greatest painters of all time, was born on 6 April 1483. It is a fifteenth century town house, which belonged to his father, Giovanni Santi, himself a painter and poet at the court of the Montefeltro, who ran a workshop here and gave his son his first training in the art of painting. Raphael lived here until he was a boy; he lost his mother at eight and his father at eleven, and soon left Urbino to go to Perugia, where he worked with Perugino, and then to Florence and Rome, where he became the painter of the popes.

The house, bought in 1873 by the Accademia Raffaello, which still manages it, preserves the atmosphere of a Renaissance home, with rooms furnished with period furniture, a small courtyard with a well and stone for grinding colours, and the kitchen. In one of the rooms on the first floor, a fresco of the Madonna and Child is preserved, a tender image of a young mother reading with her son asleep on her lap, which according to tradition was painted by the very young Raphael, perhaps depicting his mother with himself, although many scholars attribute it to his father Giovanni Santi. The house also displays copies of Raphael's works, paintings by his father and other artists of the period, and documents on the life of the painter. From the top of Via Raffaello, at the monument to the artist, the view over the town and the Ducal Palace is beautiful.

Tip: combine the house with the Ducal Palace, where Raphael's "La Muta" is displayed; the climb up Via Raffaello is steep.

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