Raffaello, Sibille e angeli, 1514, 12

Two female prophetic figures sit flanking an architectural arch; on the left, a younger woman in a red mantle looks back toward an angel, while on the right, an older woman leans over a large book. Hovering angels and putti present the women with scrolls and stone tablets containing inscriptions in Greek and Latin. The scene captures the moment of divine inspiration, with the figures arranged in a complex, interlocking composition typical of the High Renaissance.

Sibyls were ancient pagan prophetesses whom Renaissance thinkers like Marsilio Ficino and the Neoplatonists viewed as 'prisca theologia'—figures who possessed fragments of divine truth and predicted the coming of Christ to the Gentile world. This fresco, commissioned by the banker Agostino Chigi, illustrates the synthesis of classical mystery traditions with Christian revelation.