RAFFAELLO Sanzio
(b. 1483, Urbino, d. 1520, Roma)

The Donation of Rome (detail)

1520-24
Fresco
Sala di Constantino, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican

In the right foreground, next to the lame beggar, stands a lavishly clothed youth who is clearly a contemporary portrait. To judge from his age and prominence of his depiction, it can only be Ippolito de' Medici, whom the pope sent to Florence in 1524 as the supreme secular representative of the Medici. Ippolito had already appeared in a related scene, and in a similar role, in the Stanza dell'Incendio - namely, Raphael's Coronation of Charlemagne. There as here he looks out at the viewer.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.