A group from a Massacre of the Innocents

A facsimile wood-engraving of a drawing depicting a group from a Massacre of the Innocents now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 69 verso). See RCIN 854645 for a photograph of the drawing. This print was published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Lettered with the attribution of the drawing to Raphael, the location of the drawing and signed by the printmaker.

Ruland (1876) suggested that this drawing was copied after a composition by Fra Giovanni da Fiesole.Ferino Pagden wrote (see Bibliographic References) that the composition copied in this drawing is by Raphael. Previous scholars believed this drawing not to be by a copy but rather by the young Raphael and Ferino Pagden noted that some sketchy details (such as the head at the far right) and the way in which the 'pentimenti' (alterations in the drawing) have been erased are reminiscent of the young Raphael. The child crying in his mother's arms at the right is close to that of a drawing by Raphael (c.1501) now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 3855 v). See RCIN 851905 for a photograph of this drawing.

This drawing is part of the so-called "Libretto di Raffaello" or "Libretto Veneziano", 53 sheets that used to be mounted in a volume. After complicated negotiations, the sketchbook was bought by the museum in the 1820s, after the death of Giuseppe Bossi, who was its previous owner. A number of scholars debated the author of the drawings (with many names proposed, such as Pinturicchio, Antonio da Viterbo, Eusebio del Giorgio, Girolamo Genga) and their date. In 1984, the Gallerie dell'Accademia catalogued the drawings as by an artist contemporary to Raphael, whose juvenile works he copied in this sketchbook (see Bibliographic References).