The sibyls

A print by Giovanni Volpato reproducing the fresco The four sibyls painted by the workshop of Raphael c.1511-14 in the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria della Pace, Rome. Lettered with title and attribution to Raphael within image, and identification of the sybils and Latin texts below the image. Signed and dated. Numbered top left: II. Published as Plate 11 in Gavin Hamilton's Schola Italica Picturae, 1773. On watermarked paper. Not in Ruland (1876).

Hamilton's Schola Italica Picturae comprised 40 plates, executed by leading Italian printmakers, reproducing Italian Old Master paintings. No text accompanied the plates.

Raphael was commissioned, probably early in 1511, by the banker Agostino Chigi to decorate his chapel in Santa Maria della Pace. The initial plan of decoration for the chapel included frescoes, two bronze roundels and an altarpiece; however, whilst Raphael executed some designs for the altarpiece, which was to depict the resurrection, it was never executed, and the bronze roundels, whilst cast, appear to never have been installed. The frescoes comprise two registers, with four prophets on the top  (flanking a window) and four sybils below. According to Vasari, portions of the frescoes were painted by Timoteo Viti.