V. Lisanti - Abstract

The article aims to trace the provenance of the 16th century copy of the Madonna del Divino Amore by Raphael preserved in the Sala delle Oche of the Appartamento dei Conservatori in the Capitoline Museums. Previously mentioned in the inventories as part of the great collection of Francesco Maria Del Monte, the painting entered the capitoline collections in 1627. Only in the late 1730s the artwork was reframed and symbolically placed at the centre of the display of the room, restored and redecorated on purpose, since it was believed an original by Raphael. Through the study of archival and literary sources and the first engravings pulled by the original, the article also reconstructs the fortune of the Madonna del Divino Amore by Raphael from the second half of the 16th century - when the painting still was in Rome being copied by many artists in Palazzo Farnese - to the diffusion of its prints in France during 17th and 18th centuries.

Finally, new light was given to the painting in the occasion of the celebration for the 4th centenary of Raphael’s birth in 1883 thanks to the art-biography written by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, whose commented sketch of the painting’s original drawing (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana) is presented in this article for the first time.