The earliest reference to the beautiful fresco of the Madonna and Child (solid wood fresco, 97x67 cm), preserved in Casa Santi in Urbino, dates back to the '600 when the architect Muzio Oddi, the new owner of the house, mentioned the work in its holograph memories. Initially considered as a Giovanni Santi's work, most critics agree today on attributing it to his son Raffaello, recognizing it as the first masterpiece of the painter from Urbino, then little more than a teenager.
The fresco depicts the Madonna sitting in profile within a niche while, absorbed in reading a text, tenderly strokes her baby sleeping on her lap.
The rarefied atmosphere and light colors remind the models that were circulating then in the court of Urbino, whereas the image is striking for the delicacy and ingenuity of the figures, intimately linked also by the contrast between light and shadow, that emphasizes the familiar and evocative nature of the work.