Nativity

Around 1518 Raphael had more work in Rome than one painter could carry out. There was the loggia in the Vatican for Pope Leo X, frescoes in the villa of the banker Agostino Chigi, and the huge Transfiguration altarpiece for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici. His answer was a workshop where he supplied the design and trusted assistants did the painting. This panel came out of that system, its composition taken from Raphael's drawings. The museum attributes the painting to Perino del Vaga, while some scholars give it to his colleague Gianfrancesco Penni. A broken classical capital lies among the ruins, the reed cross of the infant Saint John rests on the ground, and a white dove perches in the rafters of the stable. The panel is listed in the Borghese inventory of 1693 and hangs today in the Room of Dido.