B. Guthmüller – Abstract

As an admirer of the Psyche story, Agostino Chigi – a friend of Isabella d’Este, who popularized the myth – in the early months of 1518 gave Raphael the commission to depict it in frescoes in a loggia of his splendid villa in Trastevere, Rome, in order to have it suitably decorated for his forthcoming marriage, which was celebrated by the Pope himself on 28th August 1519, Chigi’s own saint’s day.

This contribution highlights the magnificent pictorial conception devised by Raphael for the splendid decoration of the loggia, which was to serve both as highprestige setting for his client’s marriage and to exalt his magnificence “in expendere auro et argento”.