The ceiling of the loggia of Villa Farnesina

An outline etching 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. India laid.

Ruland (1876) catalogues this print as being a plate from Ludwig Grüner, Fresco Decorations and Stuccoes of Churches & Palaces of Italy, during the Fifteenth & Sixteen Centuries, London 1844 (see RCIN 1194136 for this volume). However, there is no such matching plate in the volume.

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).