Alexis R. Culotta, Ph.D. (2014), University of Washington, is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Other publications on Raphael’s circle include her recent chapter in Breaking with Convention in Italian Visual Culture (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017).
Despite the vast literature on it, the operation and importance of Raphael's workshop is still much debated and little understood. This study restores agency and interest in artists and works of art that have long been little considered or overshadowed by Raphael himself. The author demonstrates that Raphael (1483-1520) developed a style of recombination - infused with visual quotations from ancient and contemporaneous artists-that proved influential in the development of a shared visual language among members of his entourage. Case studies illustrate how this shared, collaborative style evolved during Raphael's lifetime and was perpetuated by members of the workshop in the years immediately following the artist's death. W. E. Wallace, Washington University, in CHOICE Connect, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, Volume 58, issue 10