Under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic
The Triptych of Italian Genius 2019-2021
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
Raphael and the Antique in the
Villa of Agostino Chigi
curated by
Alessandro Zuccari and Costanza Barbieri
Villa Farnesina, 6th April – 2nd July 2023

The exhibition “Raphael and the Antique in the Villa of Agostino Chigi” completes the celebrations for the "Triptych of Italian Genius", which began with “Leonardo in Rome. Influences and legacy” (2019) and continued in 2021-2022 with the three exhibitions dedicated to Dante: “Dante's library”; “The reception of the Comedy from manuscripts to the media”; “Through Dante's eyes. Artistic Italy in the Age of Comedy”. The exhibition - under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic, with the patronage of the National Committee for the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Raphael's death and of the Associazione Amici della Accademia dei Lincei, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and with the support of Intesa Sanpaolo – highlights a crucial aspect of the Italian Renaissance hitherto insufficiently highlighted: Raphael's classical turning point in the second decade of the sixteenth century is well-known thanks to numerous studies, but little attention has been paid to the influence that the important collection of statues, sarcophagi, cameos, reliefs, books and ancient coins of Agostino Chigi had on the Urbinate Master. Chigi and Raphael, who died just five days apart in April 1520, shared a profound understanding based on friendship and work: after the popes Julius II and Leo X, the Sienese banker was the most assiduous and munificent patron of Sanzio. The "magnificent collections" of the rich patron have dispersed already after his death, and then with the Sack of Rome until the sale of the villa to the Farnese family in 1579, increasing the great Roman and European collections. Thanks to important loans, the exhibition is an opportunity to rearrange, at least in part, the Chigian collections in their place of origin and to have a full understanding of how much they have inspirated the classic style of Raphael and his school, of Peruzzi, Sebastiano del Piombo and Sodoma, contributing to the development of the whole Renaissance. For the first time, after five hundred years, the Villa of Agostino Chigi is once again that "treasure house" capable of enclosing the spirit of that time in a single place, recomposing a dialogue between "ancient" and "modern" that only the physical perception can assure.