Galleria Borghese

Rome

Pala Baglioni (1507)

A lost inscription records the fact that Atalanta Baglioni commissioned this altarpiece from Raphael in 1507.  Giorgio Vasari records that Raphael made the cartoon in Florence and then returned to Perugia to paint the altarpiece in Atalanta' chapel, the Cappella di San Matteo of San Francesco al Prato.  The commission, which had been made in ca. 1505, was almost certainly related to the murder of Atalanta's son, Grifonetto in 1500.

The gallery owns only the main panel of the altarpiece, which depicts the transfer of the body of Christ to the sepulchre.  Two men carry the body on a sheet.  St John the Evangelist and a fourth man stand near the head of Christ, St Mary Magdalene holds His hand, and the Virgin, attended by three women, swoons at His feet.  The place of execution is on the hill to the right, and the tomb is in the rocks to the left.  The panel is signed and dated on the stepping-stone to the bottom left-hand corner.

The Franciscans somewhat controversially sold this panel to Cardinal Scipione Borghese in 1608, having moved it first to the sacristy because the Cappella di San Matteo was subsiding.   The French took it from Rome to Paris in 1797, but it was subsequently returned to the Galleria Borghese.   It is illustrated in the website of Galleria Borghese.  The copy attributed to the Cavalier d' Arpino that Borghese sent as a replacement is now in the Galleria Nazionale, Perugia (Room  27).

The subject of the upper panel of the altarpiece is known only:

  • from a preparatory design by Raphael in the Palais des Beaux Arts, Lille; and

  • from what seems to be a copy (early 17th century) in the Galleria Nazionale, Perugia (Room 27) that is attributed to Stefano Amadei. 

Both of these depict the figure of God the father, who would have looked down across the intervening frame at the face of His dead son.  The fate of the original (which might have been executed to Raphael's design by Domenico Alfani) is unknown.

The predella panels in grisaille, which depict personifications of Hope, Charity and Faith, are now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome.

Return to San Francesco al Prato, Perugia.