The Sistine Chapel may be off-limits, but not Raphael's papal rooms, like that of Heliodorus.
Raphael, an artist and an architect, was summoned to Rome in 1508, and the four frescoed rooms
where the pope conducted his business were a prized commission.
The
rooms were originally decorated during the reigns of Popes Alexander VI
(1492-1503) and Pius III (whose papacy lasted less than a month in
1503), by renowned Renaissance artists like Piero della Francesca, Luca
Signorelli and Bramantino. Julius II brought in other luminaries to
complete the work before deciding to give Raphael carte blanche to start
fresh.
The restoration campaign brought new insights into how Raphael worked,
including how he transferred his drawings from a nearly nine-yard-wide
cartoon onto the walls, the methods he used to apply plaster, how
quickly he painted and the organization of his workshop.
One example: A
recipe Raphael invented to copy the stucco of antiquity that he saw on
an underground visit to Nero’s palace buried under the Colle Oppio in
Rome.
“Raphael was a very adventurous artist, and continually
experimented, so from this point of view these frescoes are more unique
than Michelangelo’s,” said Prof. Arnold Nesselrath, delegate for the
scientific department and laboratories of the Vatican Museums, and the
only member of the original restoration team still involved.
The restoration also provided some clues to understanding more mundane
aspects of the period. Some beans found inside a small hole in the
fresco of the “Fire in the Borgo,”
painted from 1514 to 1517, suggests that it didn’t take long for these
legumes, indigenous to the Americas and imported by Columbus some 20
years earlier, to become part of the common man’s diet in Europe.
“Sadly, they were cooked,” making it impossible to replant them and
replicate their taste, Professor Nesselrath said Thursday, during a
preview tour of the frescoes, whose official inauguration has been
postponed because of the unexpected conclave next month.
Begun in 1982, the restoration was carried out one fresco at a time so
that visitors could continue to see Raphael’s famed works.
Restorers now believe that significant traces of the earlier frescoes
remain, including the fresco depicting the delivery of the Pandects (a
legal code) to the Emperor Justinian, in the Room of the Segnatura, now
attributed to the Renaissance artist Lorenzo Lotto,
who had been drafted by Julius II before Raphael was brought in. Lotto
ended up working in Raphael’s workshop, on several the frescoes,
Professor Nesselrath said.
The restoration of several frescoes was funded by the Patrons
of the Arts in the Vatican Museums, an association founded in 1982
after a show of Vatican paintings toured the United States.
“They help us to fund restorations and keep the Vatican beautiful and
young and attractive, despite the wear and tear to the museums caused by
five million visitors a year,” said the Rev. Mark Haydu, the group’s
international coordinator. A list of projects is drafted each year — the
Borgia apartments are a recent addition, for example — and money is set
aside for restoration.
Tests will be undertaken this year, with a proper project planned for
next year, for the restoration of the Room of Constantine, a huge
banquet hall whose frescoes were designed by Raphael but executed mostly
after his death, in 1520, by his workshop, Professor Nesselrath said.