# Study for the Head of a Poet [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [RAFFAELLO Sanzio]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Silverpoint on pink prepared paper, 122 x 103 mm ## Commentary Study for the Head of a Poet c. 1511 Silverpoint on pink prepared paper, 122 x 103 mm Museo Horne, Florence Parnassus is the mountain where the laurel trees which supplied the wreaths of the poets grew. In the fresco, Raphael creates an ideal poetic trio composed of Homer in the centre, with the modern Italian poet Dante on the left and Virgil, Dante's guide in the Divine Comedy, on the right. Virgil looks behind Homer in the direction of Dante, who returns the gaze. While Dante is shown in profile and Homer is fully frontal, <A onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/r/raphael/4stanze/1segnatu/3/parnass6.html'\)" HREF="/html/r/raphael/4stanze/1segnatu/3/parnass6.html">Virgil's face,</A> tilted back, is in three-quarter view. In this drawing, a study for the fourth figure from the left in the Parnassus, often identified as Petrarch, Raphael studies a similar face in three-quarter profile. ## Related artworks - [A Group of Nude Men]() - [A Group of Warriors]() - [A nude man advancing to the right \(verso\)]() - [A Soldier before the Cell of St Peter]() - [A Youthful Warrior \(recto\)]() - [Adam and Eve \(ceiling panel\)]() - [Aerial view]() - [Aldobrandini Madonna \(Garvagh Madonna\)]() - [Allegory \(The Knight's Dream\)]() - [Amorini at play \(verso\)]() - [An Angel]() - [Angel \(fragment of the Baronci Altarpiece\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()