A griffin

A photograph of a pen and ink drawing depicting a griffin now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 68 verso). Annotated on the verso.

It has been noted that this drawing bears a very close relation with the illustration by Sandro Botticelli of the XXX Canto of the Purgatorio (second part of Dante's Divine Comedy) (see Bibliographic References). This drawing is on the verso of a sheet depicting a male bust (see RCIN 854426 for a photograph of the recto).  

This drawing is part of the so-called "Libretto di Raffaello" or "Libretto Veneziano", 53 sheets that used to be mounted in a volume. After complicated negotiations, the sketchbook was bought by the Venetian museum in the 1820s, following the death of Giuseppe Bossi, who was its previous owner. A number of scholars debated the author of the drawings (with many names proposed, such as Pinturicchio, Antonio da Viterbo, Eusebio del Giorgio, Girolamo Genga) and their dates. In 1984, the Gallerie dell'Accademia catalogued the drawings as by an artist contemporary to Raphael, whose juvenile works he copied in this sketchbook (see Bibliographic References).

A copy of this photograph (RCIN 854197) can be found in the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection, portfolio 46 (970606)