Room of the Segnatura

The two great assemblies face each other across this room. In the School of Athens, ancient thinkers gather within painted architecture. In the Disputation over the Most Holy Sacrament, a heavenly and earthly assembly gathers around the Christian Sacrament. Philosophy and theology occupy opposing walls. Pope Julius II used this room as a library and private office. Raphael painted its programme between 1508 and 1511. Poetry and justice complete the wall subjects, and the ceiling’s allegorical figures relate to the paintings beneath them. You can follow one subject between wall and ceiling rather than trying to identify every person at once. The room’s name comes from a later use by the Segnatura, a tribunal of the Holy See. Its furnishings also changed. The lower-wall decoration painted in shades of one colour belongs to Perin del Vaga’s work under Pope Paul III. A room associated with Raphael holds traces of several periods of use, from private study to a place for the exercise of papal authority.