Around 1508, Pope Julius II hired a young artist named Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino to do some
frescoing in one of his apartments. He ended up liking the frescoes so much that the job
was expanded to further rooms, eventually resulting in the decoration of four apartments now
known as the Raphael Rooms. The project outlived Julius, but was continued without
interruption under his successor, Pope Leo X, starting in 1513. It also turned out to
outlive Raphael, who died in 1520 at the age of 37, and the last room was done by his
workshop, with little surviving input from Raphael himself.
The first room Raphael worked on eventually came to be known as the Stanza della
Segnatura. The first fresco, finished in 1510, was called The Disputation of the
Holy Sacrament, or Disputa for short, a marvel of composition and execution
depicting both heaven and earth.
The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament
The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament
The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament
The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament
The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament
The second fresco, on the wall opposite the Disputa, is possibly the most famous of
all the works done by Raphael, The School of Athens. It depicts a school full of famous
ancient Greek philosophers, some of which were done in the image of well-known artists of the
Italian Renaissance. For example, Plato was painted to look like Leonardo da Vinci, and Euclid
was played by Donato Bramante, first architect of the new St. Peter's Basilica. Raphael also
includes a portrait of himself, in a group on the right. Sometime during the work on this
fresco, Raphael got a peek at the work going on in the nearby Sistine Chapel, and couldn't help
adding an additional figure to The School of Athens – the lone figure of Heraclitus,
played by Michelangelo. Also at this point, Raphael's work started to become more dramatic and
less static, probably influenced by Michelangelo's work.
The School of Athens
The School of Athens
The School of Athens - Plato and Aristotle
The School of Athens - Pythagoras, Heraclitus, etc.
The School of Athens
Ceiling, Stanza della Segnatura
The other frescoes in this room were The Parnassus, which depicts the Mountain residence
of Apollo, and The Cardinal and Theological Virtues, thought to be designed by Raphael
but executed by his workshop.
Work on the second apartment began in 1511. This room became known as the Stanza di
Eliodoro, being named after the most well-known fresco in it, The Expulsion of
Heliodorus from the Temple. This fresco depicts angels tossing Heliodorus out of the
Temple of Jerusalem, where he'd gone to try to seize its valuables. Julius II appears on the
left this fresco, observing the action.
The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple
The Deliverance of St. Peter, also in this room, depicts St. Peter being freed from jail by an angel.
The Deliverance of St. Peter
The other frescoes in this room include The Mass at Bolsena and a battle fresco,
The Meeting of Leo the Great and Attila.
By 1514, when work started on the third room (the Stanza dell'Incendio del Borgo),
Raphael, who had been delegating more and more of the work to his assistants, seems to
have mostly lost interest in the project. He provided a drawing on which one of the
frescoes was based and possibly helped design another, but left his assistants on their
own for the other two. All four frescoes were executed by the assistants.
The first fresco, from which the room gets its name, is known as The Fire in the Borgo.
It depicts a fire in the Borgo section of Rome in 847, and the miraculous containment of
it through a benediction by Pope Leo IV. The second fresco depicts The Battle of
Ostia, an 849 naval battle between the Saracens and a league of Christian states. Pope
Leo IV appears in this fresco as well, looking uncannily like Pope Leo X. The other two
frescoes feature Pope Leo III, who also strongly resembles Leo X. They depict The
Coronation of Charlemagne, which happened on Christmas Day in 800, and The Oath of Leo
III, depicting the Pope taking an oath of purgation (also in 800) after having been
accused of misconduct.
Stanza dell'Incendio del Borgo
The Fire in the Borgo
The Fire in the Borgo
The Fire in the Borgo
The Fire in the Borgo
The Battle of Ostia
The Coronation of Charlemagne
The Coronation of Charlemagne
The Coronation of Charlemagne
The last of the Raphael Rooms is the largest and had very little to do with Raphael, partly
because most of his attention was on other things, and partly because he died part way
through its completion. The room is called The Hall of Constantine, and frescoes in this
room depict scenes from the emperor Constantine's victories over paganism. The frescoes
are called The Vision of the Cross, The Battle of Milvian Bridge, The
Donation of Constantine and The Baptism of Constantine. The Pope at this time
in history was Pope Sylvester, and in his depiction in the frescoes, he refreshingly
doesn't look like Leo X. Coincidentally, Leo X died before the frescoes were finished, and
his successor, Clement VII, apparently did bear a Popely resemblance to Sylvester.
The Baptism of Constantine
The Battle of Milvian Bridge
Frescoes, Hall of Constantine
Fresco, Hall of Constantine
The order in which we went through the rooms was not the order listed above. Visitors are
herded past all of the rooms, and then brought back through them, first through the Hall of
Constantine, second through the Stanza di Eliodoro, then through the Stanza della
Segnatura, and finally through the Stanza dell'Incendio del Borgo. From there,
the hallway leads in one inexorable direction, toward the grand finale of the visit to the
Vatican Museums – the Sistine Chapel.