ROME: Art sleuths have created a 3D reconstruction of the face of Italian painter Raphael, solving an age-old mystery over his final resting place, Rome’s Tor Vergata University said on Thursday.

The artist, a child prodigy and part of a trinity of Renaissance greats along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, died in 1520, aged only 37. A red rose graces his tomb in Rome’s Pantheon all year round.

His body was exhumed in the 19th century, at which point a plaster cast of his skull was made. But experts were not sure the remains really belonged to Raphael, for the excavation also unearthed other full and partial skeletons.

Several of the skeletons belonged to the artist’s students, but others went unidentified.

Popular myth has it that the Renaissance painter, who was said to have had an active sex life, succumbed to syphilis in 1520, though experts widely agree that he died of pneumonia, possibly after visiting lovers late on freezing nights.

As Rome marked 500 years since his death this year, the university team set about making a 3D reconstruction of the plaster cast.

It found a clear match with the Raphael pictured in portraits by other artists in the period, as well as the artist’s self-portraits, molecular biology expert Mattia Falconi said.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2020