URBINO.- The city of Urbino (north of Italy) is remembering its most illustrious son, Renaissance painter Raphael, through a great exhibition that has gathered 40 of his works of art and another 40 by different artists of the time.

The exhibition "Raphael and Urbino", organized by the Superintendency of Superintendency of Historical, Artistical and Ethno-Anthropological heritage for the Marche, was inaugurated on Saturday at the Ducal Palace in this small city, and pretends to put a value on the connection between Raphael and his place of origin.

According to a note by organizers, Urbino “was not only the city were Raphael was born, but it determined in a significant way his growing up” and was, during the entire life of the artist, “an essential point of reference”.

The exhibition attempts to reconstruct the artistic and cultural atmosphere between the years 1470 and 1480, when Raphael´s formation period took place, with special attention on the influence his father, Giovanni Santi, painter of the Dukes of Urbino and owner of an important artist workshop had on him.

Raphael was a "child prodigy", who started to learn art from his father from a very early age.

This learning period is illustrated by 32 paintings and 10 drawings by Santi and other painters and artists who had a profound influence during the period, such as Andrea Mantegna or Perugino, from whom Raphael learned.

One of the sections of the exhibition explains the influence that Raphael had on Urbino´s most important industry in the XV Century, mayolic ceramics, and in the exhibition there is a never before seen piece, for which an original drawing made by the painters was used to make it.

The exhibition also shows 20 paintings and 19 drawings that constitute Raphael´s “masterpieces from his youth”, some of which were made in the Workshops in Urbino, which he inherited from his father in 1500, after his death, in 1494.

Among these are: "Saint Sebastian" from the Pinacoteca Carrara in Bérgamo, the "Ángel" and "Saint Miguel" which are housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris or the "Holy Family of the Sheep", which belongs to the Museo del Prado, in Madrid. Apart from other paintings which have arrived from Washington, Los Angeles, Lisbon, Budapest, London, Milan and Naples.