Raphael Rooms

The paintings cover the room you are standing in. Doors, windows, walls and ceilings all had to fit into a decoration made for a working papal apartment. Pope Julius II chose these second-floor rooms as his residence, and Raphael and his workshop painted them between 1508 and 1524. Each room has its own subject and earlier use. The Room of the Segnatura was Julius’s library and private office. Its School of Athens gathers ancient thinkers in a painted building, opposite the theological assembly of the Disputation. In the Room of Heliodorus, scenes present the Church receiving divine protection. These pictures also spoke to the papal politics of their own time. Raphael died in 1520, before the apartment’s decoration was complete. His assistants continued the work, especially in the Hall of Constantine. The Room of the Fire in the Borgo also owes much to his workshop. As you look, separate the story taking place inside a picture from the later pope who commissioned it for this room.