Minerva visiting Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus

The present drawing is probably an early design for the fresco of the same subject on the west wall of the Salone della Caminata in the Villa Simoncelli at Torre San Severo, near Orvieto (see R. Eitel-Porter, 'Cesare Nebbia's work for the Palazzo Simoncelli: drawings and frescoes', Burlington Magazine, CXXXVI, no. 1096 (1994), pp. 433-38). The composition is clearly derived from Raphael's Parnassus in the Stanza della Segnatura of the Vatican, and Nebbia does not in fact appear to have been aware of the Villa Simoncelli's layout when he executed this drawing: at the Villa the doors are all at the sides of the walls, not in the centre, as shown here. Although the frescoes are not dated, they were probably executed between 1570 and 1580.

We are grateful to Dr Rhoda Eitel-Porter for her help in preparing this catalogue entry, and for having confirmed the attribution to Nebbia on examination of the original.