Angel

A young angel with long, curly auburn hair and a thin golden halo gazes upward with parted lips. The figure holds a curling paper scroll, known as a phylactery, which bears text related to the divine selection of a saint. This panel is one of the few surviving pieces of Raphael's first documented commission, the Baronci Altarpiece, which was damaged in an 18th-century earthquake.

The work illustrates the late medieval and early Renaissance concept of angelic mediation between the human and divine. The depiction of celestial messengers relates to the Neoplatonic recovery of Pseudo-Dionysius's 'Celestial Hierarchy,' a text influential to Renaissance thinkers like Marsilio Ficino who viewed angels as essential links in the Great Chain of Being.