Galatea (Raphael)

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The Triumph of Galatea is a fresco completed around 1512 by the Italian painter Raphael for the Villa Farnesina in Rome. The Farnesina was built for the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi, one of the richest men of that age. The Farnese family later acquired and renamed the villa, smaller than the more ostentatious palazzo at the other side of the Tiber. The fresco is a mythological scene of a series embellishing the open gallery of the building, a series which was inspired by the "Stanzas on the Tournament" of the poet Angelo Poliziano. In Greek mythology, the beautiful Nereid Galatea had fallen in love with the peasant shepherd Acis. Her consort, one-eyed giant Polyphemus, after chancing upon the two lovers together, lobbed an enormous pillar and killed Acis – Sebastiano del Piombo produced a fresco of Polyphemus next to Raphael's work. Raphael did not paint any of the main events of the story. He chose the scene of the nymph's apotheosis (Stanze, I, 118–119). Galatea appears surrounded by...

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