Better known as “Pala Baglioni” [1] it was commisioned by Atalanta Baglioni. Her son, Grifonetto, was assasinated during families fights in Perugia and she called Raffaello to paint it as the altarpiece of the family chapel in the church of San Francesco al Prato.

More than twenty drawings by the painter, related to the altarpiece, signed and dated 1507, make us understand its complex genesis.

As we see in the pen drawing [2] at the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), at the beginning he studies the iconographic theme of the pity (compianto). The passage towards the deposition happens step by step.

In another pen drawing [3] at the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), the figures are lifting the body of Jesus while in the one at the British Museum [4] Jesus is held up but not yet moved, we indeed see the Virgin Mary knelling.

The pen drawing in London (British Museum) [5] records the passage to the actual trasportation of the Jesus body, the characters are indeed moving.

In the Uffizi drawing [6], made just before the execution of the preparatory cartoon, the main group is now fully defined.

In the right background we catch a glimpse of the three crosses to the top of the hill and in the foreground the moment when the body is moved toward the tomb. The profile of the young man wearing green and red robes, has been identified as Grifonetto, the son of Atalanta who was killed in Perugia.

This artwork was imagined as part of an early dismantled complex. The Blessing Christ is now at the National Gallery of Umbria and the Three Allegories of the Theological Virtues are in the Vatican Pinacoteca. 

It was stolen in the night between March 17^th and 18^th 1608. The Cardinal Scipione Borghese fell in love with the masterpiece probably when he was studying law in Perugia. In 1609 he delivered a copy, traditionally attributed to Cavalier d’Arpino, as a compesation. That’s the reason why we now admire one of the greatest work by Raffaello in the Borghese Gallery.

Bibliography and images: Pierluigi De Vecchi, Raffaello, Rizzoli 2002.