Poetry [from the 'Stanza della Segnatura']

A photograph of one of the four roundels painted on the vault of the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. This roundel depicts the allegorical figure of Poetry, flanked by two winged putti holding inscribed panels.

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).