Raphael by Paul G. Konody — Read

Raphael came to Rome before September 1508, for on the 5th of that month he sent a letter from the city of the popes to Francia at Bologna, whom he had probably met at Urbino. It must have been an intoxicating experience for the young master to find himself suddenly surrounded by the wonders of the classic world which at that time dominated the whole world of thought so that Christianity itself became permeated with Paganism; and to be as suddenly raised from the modest position, which in Florence had made him look with awe and veneration upon Michelangelo and Lionardo, to independent responsibility, as the compeer of the greatest of his calling. From the very first Pope Julius II. seems to have placed the utmost confidence in the newcomer, and the manner in which Raphael accomplished the first task set to him by his mighty patron not only justified this confidence but apparently made the Pope dissatisfied with much of the decorative work that had been executed in the Vatican rooms before the advent of the Urbinate.

Julius II.'s hatred of his predecessor, Alexander VI., had made it distasteful for him to live in the apartments that had been occupied by the Borgia Pope, so that he decided, in 1507, to move into the upper rooms of the Vatican, which, under the pontificate of Nicholas V., had been decorated by Pier dei Franceschi and Bramantino. These frescoes, however, did not find favour with the new Pope, who enlisted the services of Perugino, Peruzzi, Sodoma, Signorelli, and Pinturicchio for the redecoration of the "Stanze", and finally entrusted Raphael with the painting of four medallions in Sodoma's ceiling in the first room, the Camera della Signatura. There has been some divergence of opinion as to the use of this room, but the subjects of the decorative scheme clearly point towards its being originally intended for a library. The allegorical figures of Theology, Philosophy, Jurisprudence, and Poetry with which Raphael filled the four medallions of the vaulted ceiling, were often used for the decoration of libraries during the late Renaissance; and the frequent occurrence of books in all the compositions lends further probability to this theory.