Pan and Syrinx

A print by Angelo Campanella reproducing the fresco depicting Pan and Syrinx on the west wall of the stufetta, who was court painter to Ferdinand IV of Sicily from 1786. Numbered at top right: 36. Plate 36 in or bathroom, in the apartments of Cardinal Bibbiena in the Vatican Palace. The stufetta was frescoed with mythological subjects by Raphael's workshop c.1516. Annotated on verso. Proof before letters. The lettered print (see RCIN 853875) published as plate 36 in Pietro Paolo Montagnani's Schola Italica artis pictoriae, Rome, 1806.

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.