Between 1504 and 1508, for the first time in Italy, Europe and the world, Florence was the city which accommodated within the confines of its medieval walls the greatest painters of the time and undoubtedly some of the best of all time: Leonardo da Vinci was over fifty years old, Michelangelo Buonarroti in his late thirties and Raphael Sanzio da Urbino little more than twenty years old.