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Vatican Frescoes

Vatican Frescoes

      The heads of Homer, Dante and another poet

      c.1853-76

      Salted paper print | RCIN 852477

      A photograph of a drawing by Raphael (c.1510) currently in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (RCIN 912760r). The two heads at left correspond closely to those of Dante and Homer, standing in the upper left of Raphael's fresco of Parnassus, painted in c.1510-11 in the Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican. The head at upper right has been connected both with the poet standing above Sappho in the left foreground of the fresco, or with the figure of Virgil, standing immediately to the right of Homer.
      • Acquired for the Prince Consort's Raphael Collection (c.1853-76)

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