Timoteo Viti

Timoteo Viti belongs to the close artistic world of Urbino, the small Renaissance court that also produced Raphael. He trained in Bologna in the workshop of Francesco Francia during the 1490s and then returned to Urbino, where he became one of the city’s leading painters. That placed him near the young Raphael during his formative years, although the exact nature of their artistic relationship remains debated. Later Viti himself worked within Raphael’s wider circle in Rome. A drawing in the Metropolitan Museum shows the practical side of his work: a study of a raised arm made for Saint Sebastian in an altarpiece painted around 1513 to 1515. The sheet survives as one small step between the planning of a figure and the finished religious painting.