Vision of a Knight (Raphael)
The Vision of a Knight or The Dream of Scipio or Allegory is a small egg tempera painting on poplar wood by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was completed in 1504 and is located at the National Gallery in London. You probably originated together with the Three Graces, also 17 cm square, now in the Musée Condé of the Château de Chantilly.
There are various theories as to what is represented in the painting. According to some art historians of sleeping on his shield knight was the Roman general Scipio Africanus, who dreams that he (right, in a loose robe ) must choose between virtue (left, behind her a steep and rocky path) and pleasure. However, the two female figures are not represented as opponents. They may represent the ideal properties of the knight: the book, sword and flower which are keeping them for the ideals of scholarship, struggle, and Minne, a knight should combine.
The most likely source of the allegory is from a passage in the Punica of the Latin poet Silius Italicus, an epic poem that tells of the Second Punic War.
The image was brought to England by the English art collector William Young Ottley in 1800.