Apollo on Parnassus

During their eight-year collaboration, Raphael provided drawings to Marcantonio Raimondi, who translated them into engravings. Marcantonio’s technique is exemplifed here, consisting of curved, parallel lines crossed with hatching and punctuated with short flicks. Broad areas of blank space, printing as white, create strong chiaroscuro (light and shadow) effects. This print reproduces Raphael’s fresco in the pope’s living quarters at the Vatican and features Apollo and the Muses with three poets—Dante, Homer, and Virgil (at left). Marcantonio printed this unique working proof (such proofs are exceptionally rare), before finishing Apollo’s hands and instrument, some leaves, and the door below, perhaps to test light and shadow prior to filling in further details.