St Andrew

A photograph of a drawing depicting a standing man now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (inv. no. 22 recto).

Ferino Pagden (see Bibliographic References) gives an account of the various scholarly opinions about the original model for this figure. It is catalogued as St Andrew and it probably comes from a composition originating within Pietro Perugino's circle.

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).