A drawing of a scene from the Book of Revelation, showing an angel standing in a sun, executed in pen and ink over black chalk, after a fresco in the Baptistery of Padua Cathedral.

This pen and ink drawing by Domenico Campagnola is a copy after a fresco in the Apocalypse cycle in the Baptistery of Padua Cathedral. The Apocalypse fresco cycle was created by Giusto de’ Menabuoi (1349–c.1390) around 1376–78. Painted across three walls of the Baptistery, the cycle depicts forty-two scenes from the Book of Revelation. (Martin Clayton, Drawings by Domenico Campagnola after Giusto de’ Menabuoi Apocalypse Frescoes, Master Drawings, 2004, vol. 42, no.4, pp. 315–332).

The drawing is a copy of a scene in the lower left embrasure of the Baptistery window. It illustrates Revelation 19:17 and depicts an angel standing in the sun, framed in a mandorla. He is shown holding an orb in his right hand, his left hand raised in benediction. Campagnola’s drawing is a close to the fresco, though he has recast the figure in a sixteenth-century style.

Martin Clayton has suggested that it is probable that Campagnola created drawings of the entire cycle, possibly producing them as the model for a set of prints. This would have been an extensive project, likely inspired by the commercial success of the woodcut Apocalypse cycle created in 1498 Albrecht Dürer’s (1471–1528). There is, however, no evidence that Campagnola carried out any further work on the project.

The Royal Collection holds 22 sheets from Campagnola’s cycle (907764–907785), all of which are bound in an album dating from George III’s reign. The sheets are not mounted in the album in the order of their occurrence in The Book of Revelation. There are several other sheets from the project on the art market, and one held in the Morgan Library, New York (2017.23). Martin Clayton’s article provides a wider description of the project and identifies other extant sheets.

Known for the fluid style of his woodcuts and landscape drawings, Campagnola was the adopted son and apprentice of Guilio Campagnola (c.1482–1517). Campagnola’s early work shows the direct influence Guilio’s graphic style, as well as that of Dürer, whose prints were widely circulated in Northern Italy. Campagnola was also profoundly influenced by Titian (c.1485–1576), his landscape drawings in particular reflect Titian’s atmospheric designs for landscape woodcuts. By 1520, Campagnola was working in Padua, where he produced frescoes and paintings for private residences and churches, and where he would have encountered Giusto de’ Menabuoi’s fresco cycle.