Grottesche - Loggia di Raffaello

The image shows narrow vertical panels filled with delicate, symmetrical ornaments including winged figures, masks, squirrels, and birds entwined in acanthus leaves. Small circular and rectangular paintings depicting classical scenes are interspersed among the decorative scrollwork. On the right, a thick, vertical garland of various fruits and leaves contrasts with the airy, white-ground 'grotesque' patterns.

The 'grotesque' style, rediscovered in the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, became a vehicle for Renaissance artists to explore the Neoplatonic concept of 'discordia concors' or the harmony of opposites. These designs represent the 'fantastic' side of the Renaissance imagination, where the boundaries between human, animal, and vegetable are blurred, reflecting Hermetic ideas about the fluid nature of the created world.