A view of a town

A photograph reproducing a pen and ink drawing depicting a view of a town now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 72 verso). This drawing is on the verso of a sheet depicting ancient walls (see RCIN 854531 for a photograph of the recto). Annotated on the verso.

Ferino Pagden (see Bibliographic References) notes that this view continues onto another sheet of the 'Libretto Veneziano' (a photograph of which can be found at RCIN 854528). This landscape is partial copy of the one depicted in reverse in the right background of the ‘Terranuova Madonna’ (c.1504-05), a painting executed by Raphael now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. no.247A). See RCIN 850660 for a photograph of the painting. The various differences noted between the painting and this drawing are assumed to derive from the draughtsman copying preparatory drawings rather than the final painting.

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).