Title: St. Cecilia Altarpiece
Description: The St. Cecilia Altarpiece is an oil painting by Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. Completed in his later years, around 1516-1517, the painting depicts Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians and Church music, listening to a choir of angels in the company of St. Paul, St. John the Evangelist, St. Augustine and Mary Magdalene. Commissioned for a church in Bologna, the painting now hangs there in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, or National Painting Gallery. According to Vasari the musical instruments strewn about Cecilia's feet were not painted by Raphael, but by his student, Giovanni da Udine. In 1880, English Romantic poet Percy Shelley described the painting as follows:
Author(s): Raphael