The exhibition traces about seventy years of the history of Italian drawing , starting with Perugino - in whose workshop the young Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino received his first artistic training - passing through the Roman studio in which Raphael , at the height of his success, became a pole of attraction and a model of style for the artists of the mature Renaissance - Giulio Romano, Parmigianino, Peruzzi, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Bandinelli, Girolamo da Carpi - who will take different paths from Rome , spreading the master's lesson throughout Italy Urbinate.

The exhibition is the result of an in-depth study, designed on the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of Raphael's death , aimed at identifying within the nucleus of the Italian drawings of the '500 owned by the Library, those attributable to the circle of Raphael.

Drawings are forms of art of particular charm because they allow access to the most intimate dimension of an artist, they testify to the creative and formative process of an author and, unlike other forms of art, they are based on the use of a few techniques, often a single medium on a small portion of white paper. This essentiality gives them a particular expressive force, reveals the essence of the hand and mind that produced them. Thanks to a rich didactic apparatus, also containing comparative images, this exhibition leads the visitor to the discovery of the articulated world of the Renaissance drawing tradition, made up of citations, copies and preparatory works or studies for other works.

Essential hinge of the art of the sixteenth century, Raphael leaves an indelible mark on the generations of young artists who come into contact with the novelties of his expressive language, declined with sublime elegance in the commissions for Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X and for Agostino Chigi in Rome. . His Roman workshop becomes a hotbed of talents, in which the art of the master from Urbino is grafted on the experience of individual artists, coming from different areas of Italy, and on the many suggestions that the city could offer: the charm of ancient Rome and the modern expressive language of Michelangelo , engaged in those years in the decoration of the vault of the Sistine Chapel .