The School of Athens by Raphael
After nearly a decade, all four of the Vatican’s Raphael Rooms have been completely restored, with some surprising discoveries made along the way.
The Raphael Rooms are a series of rooms in the Apostolic Palace, the pope’s official residence at the Vatican. They are so named because Pope Julius II commissioned the Renaissance artist Raphael to paint a series of frescoes as decoration for what he intended to become his apartments. Some believe that he commissioned Raphael to do this so that his living quarters could be more opulent and spectacular than those of his predecessor, Pope Alexander VI. For nearly ten years, conservators have been delicately cleaning and restoring the frescoes, with the team removing the scaffolding in the Sala di Costantino on June 26th. Most of the paintings show biblical scenes or episodes from church history. The most famous of the frescoes is the School of Athens, a group portrait depicting numerous classical, pre-Christian philosophers and scientists. Raphael used the likenesses of his contemporaries for these figures. For example, Plato stands in the center with the face of Leonardo da Vinci. The architect Donato Bramante appears rather appropriately as Euclid, while the philosopher Heraclitus is seated on the steps, looking like Michelangelo. Raphael himself makes an appearance on the far right, with many positing that he represents the ancient Greek painter Apelles.
During the restoration process, conservators discovered that Raphael had been experimenting with new techniques in creating the frescoes. Typically, when creating a fresco, an artist first applies a thin layer of wet plaster onto which they will then add the paint. This is primarily for durability, as the paint and plaster dry simultaneously. The paint, therefore, becomes part of the wall rather than a layer on top of it. Just a few buildings over, Michelangelo used this technique extensively in painting the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. Raphael, however, was experimenting with ways to apply oil paint directly onto the walls of the pope’s apartments. Some of the paintings are indeed made from oil paint applied directly to walls, such as the allegorical figure of justice. The restoration team revealed how the artist accomplished this by looking at scans of some of the walls. Beneath the paint and the plaster on some of the frescoes, specialists discovered a series of nails arranged in a grid pattern. Conservators theorize that these nails were intended to hold a layer of natural resin in place, onto which Raphael would apply the paint. This would have been an experimental, radical technique, one that, unfortunately, the artist never got to use extensively, as seen by the eventual use of plaster. Raphael never got to complete the rooms himself, dying at the age of 37 in 1520. His apprentices and students, like Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni, completed the remaining work. However, with the confirmation of Raphael’s technical experimentation, the figures painted directly onto the wall can be positively attributed to Raphael rather than his students.
While the Raphael Rooms have never been fully closed during their restoration, the thousands of visitors drawn to the Vatican for the 2025 Jubilee will now be able to see all four rooms unobstructed by the restoration work.