Decoration of Cardinal Bibbiena's stufetta in the Vatican

A series of fourteen outline etchings by Tommaso Piroli reproducing elements of the decoration of the stufetta, or bathroom, in the apartments of Cardinal Bibbiena in the Vatican Palace, which was frescoed with mythological subjects by Raphael's workshop c.1516. All are lettered with a title below the images and numbered at top right. Catalogued by Ruland (1876) as having been published in Peintures du Cabinet de Jules II, au Vatican de l'Invention de Raphael, Rome 1804.

Cardinal Bibbiena had a close friendship with Raphael, patronising him on a number of occasions and, it would seem, facilitating the betrothal of the artist to his niece. In addition to the stufetta, Raphael's workshop also painted Cardinal Bibbiena's loggia. Both spaces were designed in a manner imitating ancient Roman painted decoration, and included depictions of episodes from Ovid, grotesques and ornamental motifs. The stufetta was rediscovered in the nineteenth century and survives in a much damaged form today; the loggetta was not rediscovered until the twentieth century.