Raphael's Cupid and Psyche loggia in the Villa Farnesina

A series of prints by Nicolas Dorigny reproducing the decoration of the vault of the entrance loggia of the Farnesina, Agostino Chigi's villa in Rome, which was frescoed with mythological subjects by Raphael's workshop c.1518.

Dorigny's prints are dedicated to Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma. The series comprises 12 prints; a frontispiece, 10 prints reproducing the frescoes of the entrance loggia, and the twelfth depicting Raphael's fresco the Triumph of Galatea (c.1512), in a different loggia in the same villa. The copper plates for the series were apparently destroyed at the order of Pope Leo X (see Bibliographic References).

The fresco decoration in the Farnesina illustrates the classical fable of Cupid and Psyche, a story which was also frequently used to decorate Florentine wedding chests. Raphael's fresco scheme comprises two primary scenes in the vault (painted to resemble tapestries), accompanied by a series of episodes painted in the pendentives. The whole is encompassed within a fictive pergola, which gives the viewer the impression of looking up into the heavens. Only the upper part of the loggia is painted (the vault and its supporting pendentives and spandrels).