tion as one of England’s finest writers. In
1616 he proposed to the king that he un-
dertake another voyage to South America
in search of gold. Although the king was
warned by the Spanish that Spain already
had valid claims on this territory, James
was in need of funds and released Raleigh
from prison. The expedition set out in
March 1617, but clashed with a Spanish
settlement along the Orinoco River in Gui-
ana. Raleigh sailed home, where he was ar-
rested again. The king made good his
promise to execute Raleigh should his ex-
pedition fail or find itself trespassing on
the claims of Spain, and the sentence was
finally carried out on October 29, 1618.
SEEALSO: Elizabeth I; exploration; Spenser,
Edmund
Raphael ..........................................
(1483–1520)
A painter of the Italian Renaissance ad-
mired for the balance and harmony of his
compositions, and who had a major influ-
ence on art of the later Baroque period.
Born in the town of Urbino, he was the
son of a painter, Giovanni Santi, who was
a court painter to the Duke of Urbino, Fe-
derigo da Montefeltro. After the death of
his father in 1494, the eleven-year-old
Raphael took on greater responsibility for
managing the Santi workshop, and quickly
developed a reputation as one of the best
painters in Urbino. His earliest known
works are paintings done for the Church
of San Nicola in the nearby town of Cas-A detail from Raphael’s 1510 fresco “Parnassus.”
Raphael