Святая Маргарита

In 1518 Pope Leo X sent a cluster of paintings from Rome to the French court as diplomatic gifts, and this was among them, meant for King Francis I. The choice of saint was pointed. Margaret was the name-saint of the king's clever and powerful sister, Marguerite, and the picture was almost certainly meant to flatter her. The legend behind it is a strange one. Margaret was said to have been swallowed whole by a dragon and to have cut her way out unharmed, and Raphael shows her stepping calmly free of the beast, a palm branch in her hand. By this date Raphael was running one of the largest workshops in Rome and could not paint everything himself, so much of the brushwork here is likely his assistants', worked up from his design.