The Raphael’s Rooms by Antonio Paolucci (Color Illustrated)

The decoration of the rooms was painted by Raphael – and after his death, completed by his students – in the years between 1508 and 1524. The work marked the beginning of the Roman dell’Urbinate , which replaced artists much older than he and consolidated prestige , like his master Perugino.

The first task that involved the Room of the Signatura, originally conceived as a personal library of the Pope. In the frescoes here, Raphael aims to illustrate the three most important categories of the human spirit, according to the Platonic vision: The True, the Good and the Beautiful. The true supernatural is illustrated by the Dispute of the Blessed Sacrament, the rational from the School of Athens, in a modern mirror between Sacred and Profane. Good is expressed in the representations of the Virtues and the Law while the Fair is evoked in Parnassus.

More political ideal lies at the base of the second compartment frescoed by Raphael, the Stanza of Heliodorus. In it the author emphasizes through four distinct episodes (the Expulsion of Heliodorus , the Liberation of St. Peter from prison , the Meeting of St. Leo the Great with Attila and the Mass of Bolsena) the protection and the help that God has always guaranteed to his Church and to the Pope who is in charge , whenever they found themselves through dramatic historical junctures.

Raphael then devoted himself between 1514 and 1517 the construction of the hall called Fire in the Borgo. The main aim of the decoration of this room is to illustrate the religious and political aspirations of Leo X by means of stories related to the life of two ancient Popes bearers of the same name: Leo III and Leo IV.