Raphael worked well with others, more so than many Renaissance artists. In this talk, Lisa Pon reassesses Raphael’s collaborations in painting and many other media, thereby re-evaluating period and current attitudes towards originality, authorship, artistic practice and value. In the process, readers will see not the familiar painter in “pursuit of perfection,” but an unruly Raphael who exceeds our expectations, a Renaissance artist who experiments with artistic techniques, considers polyphonic music and humanist debates, and plans a virtual Rome to explore through new means of visualisation. This research draws from Pon’s next book, forthcoming in 2026 with Brepols/Harvey Miller.
Lisa Pon is Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California and Director of Collaborations in History, Art, Religion, and Music (CHARM). She leads the Bibliotheca Iulia Instaurata project with Tracy Cosgriff, Andreas Kratky, and Frederic Nolan Clark. Pon’s first book, Raphael, Dürer and Marcantoni Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print, was published with Yale University Press in 2004; Cambridge University Press published her second monograph, Printed Icon: Forlì’s Madonna of the Fire, in 2015.
Organised by Dr Robert Brennan, Lecturer in Italian Art 1300-1500, as part of the Italian Renaissance Seminar series.
