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This engraving is plate VII from the Loggie di Rafaele by Ottaviani, engraved after drawings by Gaetano Savorelli and Pietro Camporesi, after the Vatican decoration by Raphael. Raphael succeeded Donato Bramante as the official Vatican architect in 1514. In 1517, he was commissioned by Pope Leo X to decorate the Logge. He designed a cycle of ornamental frescoes for the room's ceiling vaults, doors, and pillars, which were executed by his assistants Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Udine. Twelve of the quadrilateral ceiling vaults were adorned with murals of Old Testament scenes and one with a scene from the New Testament, while the more decorative frescoes painted on the pilasters by Udine were covered with imaginative compositions of 'grotesque' motifs like foliage, fruit, and chimerical beasts.

Ottaviani's engravings published 200 years later are significant for their influence on contemporary taste. In areas where the frescoes were illegible from damage, Ottaviani, Savorelli, and Camporese borrowed elements from Raphael's Vatican tapestries to fill in the damaged spaces. Therefore, these engravings are an amalgam of design elements.

The engraving depicts an elaboratly decorated architectural structure around and including the tympanum. Above the triangular pediment, is a garland of fruits, flower, birds, and vegetation. Along the rounded arch are plaques decorated with alternating images of vases, grotesque animals, and classically half-nude figures. In each spandrel, there is a roundel with an bird or flower; the remaining area of the spandrel is decorated with curling vines.


whales
1700-01-02
PERMANENT COLLECTION
Hart Nautical
Ottaviani, Johan; Savorelli, Gaetano; Camporese, Pietro, I
ink; paper
13 1/2 in x 23 in
Italy