Loggia di raffaello, 02, 02

Eve stands on the left, reaching for the forbidden fruit offered by a serpent with a woman's face coiled around the trunk of a fig tree. Adam is seated on a log to the right, extending his hand to receive the fruit as they both transition from innocence to mortality. The scene is set within a lush, atmospheric landscape representing the primordial Paradise.

In Renaissance Neoplatonism and Christian Kabbalah, the Fall represented the descent of the divine soul into the material world and the loss of original gnosis. This work belongs to Raphael's 'Bible' in the Vatican Loggia, where biblical history was harmonized with classical aesthetics, reflecting the 'prisca theologia' or ancient theology shared by both traditions.