Raffaello Sanzio's apples are not as tasty but more beautiful than those of Ortona dei Marsi

I visited recently, with Piera, the beautiful Raffaello exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome and, of course, I focused on the works that portrayed apples.
On 6 April 1520, Raffaello Sanzio, the greatest Renaissance painter, died at the age of thirty-seven.
After 500 years (despite the pandemic), the exhibition tells its story with a path that illustrates the work of the great Master from Rome to Florence, from Florence to Umbria, up to his native Urbino.
An exciting and fantastic path that I recommend everyone to take.
Today, therefore, let's talk about art but with the usual appeal to our passion: the apple.
Among the many and famous paintings in the exhibition, I will focus on two of them.


The first is a diptych that Raphael painted in 1504 made up of two plates: the Knight's Dream, from the National Gallery in London, and the second tablet is The Three Graces.
The first panel, Dream of the Knight, is also interpreted as Hercules at the crossroads and perhaps connected to the Punic poem by Silio Italico. The second part, kept at the Condé Museum in Chantilly in France, I had chosen for the cover of my book "Welcome to Avalon in the countryside of Ortona dei Marsi".
Needless to say, it's one of my favourites.
The second painting is, instead, the Portrait of a young man with an apple, an oil on wood belonging to the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, that Raphael painted in 1504.

The work depicts a young nobleman, identifiable as Francesco Maria della Rovere, designated as the heir of the Duchy of Urbino by his uncle Guidobaldo da Diversifeltro.
The golden apple that the young man holds with his right hand symbolically alludes to the future temporal charge.

This is how Giorgio Vasari expressed himself in 1568. “And in truth that the other paintings, paintings can be named, but those of Raphael are living things: because the flesh trembles, seeing the spirit, the senses beat their senses and lively liveliness there He sees. "

And I don't add anything else of what this immense artist has left us as a legacy.
Simply magnificent!
I must say that Raffaello Sanzio's apples are definitely much more beautiful than those of our apple orchard in Ortona dei Marsi.
But ours are better!