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Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History's Worst F*ckboys: Raphael

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, History, Education, Sex, Scandal

4.82.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Renaissance is known for its heady combination of sex, art and exciting new ideas about the world.


Was Raphael, one of the superstar painters of the period, a Renaissance top shagger? Were sex workers essential to the artistic process of painting nudes? Why did historians think he died from having too much sex?


Joining Kate today is the wonderful professor and author, Jill Burke, to help us get to know this man better.


This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer is Charlotte Long.


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All music from Epidemic Sounds.


Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, my lovely bed twixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Bettwixter Sheeds. And thank you, you are quite frankly, because without you, this is just nothing at all. But before we can go any further together, I do have to tell you once again, and I will tell you from now until the time that we are cancelled. This is an adult podcast, spoken by adults, other adults about adulty things in an adultity way covering a range of subjects and you to be an adult too. We call out the fair do's warning, because if you keep listening, you happen to get upset. Well, fair do's we did tell you. Right, on with the show. It's the early 16th century in Rome, and I have just snuck my way into Raphael's workshop while everyone's out for lunch to see if I can find

0:38.7

any clues about the naughty goings on that I have heard go on here. Let's see. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

0:46.8

Searching amongst the easels and boxes of paints. What do we have? A few nude sketches. Well, that's not

0:52.0

too bad, I suppose.

0:59.6

I can certainly see why Michelangelo had a bee in his bonnet about this.

1:01.6

Raphael is talented.

1:04.1

But still, I'm looking for something saucier,

1:07.0

and I heard a rumor about a local baker's daughter,

1:11.1

who apparently Raphael has been having his wicked way with.

1:12.7

If the rumors is to be believed,

1:15.1

she was just one of many.

1:17.7

So, we're going to have to dig a little bit deeper if we want to find out if Raphael really was

1:20.9

a Renaissance fuckboy.

1:22.3

But let's get out of here before they come back.

1:26.7

What are you a called him at?

1:28.2

Oh, money, of course.

1:29.8

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.

1:32.0

I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing it.

1:37.8

But we're not.

1:39.5

Let's be right now.

1:41.2

Let's be right now.

1:46.8

Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

...

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