This dissertation examines Raphael's Galatea (1512-13), located in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, and the role of viral transmission in relation to the iconic status and exclusivity of this fresco, and how its meaning and reception was shaped over time by its subsequent dissemination through print. The approach considers how human motivations and sensibilities drive and shape response, proposing that printed image and text participated in and amplified a process of social transmission. As such, prints can be examined, along with the objects they seek to interpret or mediate, using the contemporary notion of going viral. Printed images and text leave us traces of how ideas traversed time, place, audience, and culture, decontextualizing and then re-contextualizing works of art for distant audiences. Along the way, they shaped thoughts about those works as creators and consumers pursued agendas of their own. These portable objects offer us artifacts of the nuanced process of viral transmission that often includes a response to the original space and the insider discourses concealed on the larger market. As many details fell away, others solidified and remain with us today. Itself a response to predecessors in both literature and art, Raphael's Galatea inspired interpretations by others and became a work apart. After exploring the stories that evolved about the Villa Farnesina, its patron Agostino Chigi, and Raphael, this case study then turns to the creation and experience of the frescoes in the Loggia of Galatea. It sheds new light upon Raphael's fresco as a remarkable response to the holistic experience of Agostino Chigis villa and the intertextual and intermedial dialogue taking place amongst the various works. The final content chapter offers a re-evaluation of related engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi, Marco Dente, Hendrick Goltzius, and others, from the more familiar to the more obscure. This examination reveals an insider dialogue lost over time, illuminating how viral transmission shaped attitudes about art and artists, ultimately contributing to the formation of a canon. / Art History