Oltre l’icona del genio: intorno all’Autoritratto di Raffaello nelle Gallerie degli Uffizi

This paper studies the Raphael’s self-portrait (Uffizi Galleries): an iconographic archetype of the Renaissance artist's self-portrait. This painting was part of a path of continuity with the official iconography of the Montefeltro family. The duke Guidubaldo commissioning the Raphael’s self-portrait to testify the strong bond of the ducal family with Raphael, considered a family member. Compared to the traditional dating (around 1506), the Raphael’s self-portrait is dated just before Cesare Borgia's assault on Urbino (1502). The stylistic analysis of this painting and the comparisons with the Raphael's artworks in 1501-1502, it allows us to hypothesize that Raphael's self-portrait may have been painted around this period. The Raphael’s self-portrait is compared with two other Raphael’s portraits. The portrait of Ippolito d’Este (Budapest, The Museum of Fine Arts), perhaps commissioned by Guidobaldo as a gift to the young cardinal, when he was appointed Archpriest of St. Peter in the Vatican (1502). The portrait of a young man showing a pommel (Uffizi), it is proposed to recognize the young Guidubaldo in 1501-1502, and not his nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere.