Although it is rarely acknowledged by critics, Raphael was a writer, too. He drafted six love sonnets alongside the sketches of The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament. Petrarchan in style and dedicated to his beloved La Fornarina, the sonnets demonstrate Raphael’s engagement with courtly literature.

This lecture will explore the interaction between Raphael’s poems and his painting, with a closer look at their adaptation and appropriation by later artists, in order to demonstrate that painting and poetry went hand in hand in Raffaello's experience.