Poetry

An etching after one of the four roundels painted by Raphael in the vault of the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican (see RCIN 852621 for a photograph of the painting). Second state, numbered in the lower right corner: 4, and lettered with title below image. From a series of four prints reproducing the four roundels. The remaining prints from the series can also be found in the Raphael Collection: Theology (RCINs 852615, 852616), Philosophy (RCINs 852635, 852636), and Justice (RCIN 852639). Ruland (1876) attributed the whole series to N. Bocquet.

This roundel depicts the allegorical figure of Poetry, flanked by two winged putti holding inscribed panels, from the vault of the Stanza della Segnatura, where it is painted above the fresco of 'Parnassus'. From 1508 until his death in 1520, Raphael undertook the decoration of a number of spaces in the Vatican Palace for, first, Pope Julius II and, later, Leo X. The first of these commissions was for what was probably the Pope's private library, known as the Stanza della Segnatura. The major aspects of the decorative scheme of the room are as follows: personifications of Poetry, Theology, Jurisprudence and Philosophy in roundels on the vault, with four narrative scenes known as the School of Athens, the Parnassus, the Disputa and the Three Cardinal Virtues on the walls below. There is a preparatory drawing by Raphael for Poetry in the Royal Collection (see RCIN 912734).