The Vatican loggias (Italian : Logge di Raffaello) are a corridor space in the Apostolic Palace, originally open to the elements on one side. Their construction was begun by Donato Bramante in 1512. [1] They were decorated in fresco around 1519 by Raphael's large team of artists, with Giovanni da Udine involved. Because of the relative unimportance of the space, and a desire to copy the recently re-discovered Domus Aurea style of Ancient Roman painting, no large paintings were used, and the surfaces were mostly covered with grotesque designs on a white background, with paintings imitating sculptures in niches, and small figurative subjects in a revival of Ancient Roman style. This large array provided a repertoire of elements that were the basis for later artists creating grotesque decoration across Europe. [2]
The loggias now form part of the ceremonial route for distinguished visitors, but are not otherwise on the tourist route.
Between 1787-1792 the architect Giacomo Quarenghi constructed a full copy of the loggias, called the Raphael Loggias, in the Large Hermitage, Saint Petersburg.
The layout of the scenes in the loggia does not always align when transitioning from bay to bay. As a result, the table below does not display the biblical events in chronological order, but according to the orientation of the loggia itself.
The scheme of the ceiling of the Raphael Loggia from north to south is as follows:
East | South | West | North |
---|---|---|---|
Bay I - The Creation | |||
Separation of Light and Darkness | Separation of Land and Water | Creation of the Sun and Moon | Creation of Animals |
Bay II - Adam and Eve | |||
The Fall of Man | Expulsion from Eden | The First Children | The Creation of Eve |
Bay III - Noah | |||
The Ark on Mount Ararat | The Sacrifice of Noah | The Building of the Ark | The Flood |
Bay IV - Abraham | |||
God and Abraham | Lot Fleeing Sodom | Abraham and Melchizedek | Abraham and the Three Angels |
Bay V - Isaac | |||
Abimelech Spies and Isaac and Rebecca | Isaac and Esau | God and Isaac | Isaac and Jacob |
Bay VI - Jacob | |||
Jacob and Laban | Jacob Returns to Canaan | The Dream of Jacob | Jacob and Rachel |
Bay VII - Joseph | |||
The Treachery of Potiphar's Wife | The Dreams of Pharaoh | The Dreams of Joseph | Joseph Sold by his Brothers |
Bay VIII - Moses (I) | |||
The Water Gushing from the Rock | The Crossing of the Red Sea | The Finding of Moses | The Burning Bush |
Bay IX - Moses (II) | |||
The Pillar of Cloud | Moses Presenting the Law | Moses Receives the Tablets | The Golden Calf |
Bay X - Joshua | |||
Crossing the Jordan River | The Fall of Jericho | The Halting of the Sun | The Dividing of the Land Among the Tribes |
Bay XI - David | |||
David Sees Bathsheba | The Triumph of David | Samuel Anointing David | David and Goliath |
Bay XII - Solomon | |||
The Construction of the Temple | Solomon and the Queen of Sheba | The Consecration of Solomon by Zadok | The Judgement of Solomon |
Bay XIII - Jesus | |||
The Baptism of Christ | The Last Supper | The Nativity | The Adoration of the Magi |
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, now generally known in English as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.
The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and the Vatican Palace. The Vatican itself refers to the building as the Palace of Sixtus V, in honor of Pope Sixtus V, who built most of the present form of the palace.
Since at least the 18th century, grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus is often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks. In art, performance, and literature, however, grotesque may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes an audience feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity.
Giulio Pippi, known as Giulio Romano and Jules Romain, was an Italian Renaissance painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-century style known as Mannerism. Giulio's drawings have long been treasured by collectors; contemporary prints of them engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi were a significant contribution to the spread of sixteenth-century Italian style throughout Europe.
Villa Madama is a Renaissance-style rural palace (villa) located on Via di Villa Madama #250 in Rome, Italy. Located west of the city center and a few miles north of the Vatican, and just south of the Foro Olimpico Stadium. Even though incomplete, this villa with its loggia and segmented columned garden court and its casino with an open center and terraced gardens, was initially planned by Raphael, and highly influential for subsequent architects of the High Renaissance.
Since ancient times, Greeks, Etruscans and Celts have inhabited the south, centre and north of the Italian peninsula respectively. The very numerous rock drawings in Valcamonica are as old as 8,000 BC, and there are rich remains of Etruscan art from thousands of tombs, as well as rich remains from the Greek colonies at Paestum, Agrigento and elsewhere. Ancient Rome finally emerged as the dominant Italian and European power. The Roman remains in Italy are of extraordinary richness, from the grand Imperial monuments of Rome itself to the survival of exceptionally preserved ordinary buildings in Pompeii and neighbouring sites. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages Italy remained an important centre, not only of the Carolingian art, Ottonian art of the Holy Roman Emperors, Norman art, but for the Byzantine art of Ravenna and other sites.
Pirro Ligorio was an Italian architect, painter, antiquarian, and garden designer during the Renaissance period. He worked as the Vatican's Papal Architect under Popes Paul IV and Pius IV, designed the fountains at Villa d’Este at Tivoli for Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, and served as the Ducal Antiquary in Ferrara. Ligorio emphasized and showed a deep passion for classical Roman antiquity.
Giovanni Nanni, also Giovanni de' Ricamatori, better known as Giovanni da Udine (1487–1564), was an Italian painter and architect born in Udine. A painter also named Giovanni da Udine was exiled from his native city in 1472.
The Deposition, also known as the Pala Baglioni, Borghese Entombment or The Entombment, is an oil painting by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. Signed and dated "Raphael. Urbinas. MDVII", the painting is in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. It is the central panel of a larger altarpiece commissioned by Atalanta Baglioni of Perugia in honor of her slain son, Grifonetto Baglioni. Like many works, it shares elements of the common subjects of the Deposition of Christ, the Lamentation of Christ, and the Entombment of Christ. The painting is on wood panel and measures 184 x 176 cm.
Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary, also known as Lo Spasimo or Il Spasimo di Sicilia, is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael, of c. 1514–16, now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. It is an important work for the development of his style.
The School of Athens is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as part of a commission by Pope Julius II to decorate the rooms now called the Stanze di Raffaello in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.
The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1500 to 1599 are collectively referred to as the Cinquecento, from the Italian for the number 500, in turn from millecinquecento, which is Italian for the year 1500. Cinquecento encompasses the styles and events of the High Italian Renaissance, and Mannerism.
The Palazzo Ducale di Mantova is a group of buildings in Mantua, Lombardy, northern Italy, built between the 14th and the 17th century mainly by the noble family of Gonzaga as their royal residence in the capital of their Duchy. The buildings are connected by corridors and galleries and are enriched by inner courts and wide gardens. The complex includes some 500 rooms and occupies an area of c. 34,000 m2, which make it the sixth largest palace in Europe after the palaces of the Vatican, the Louvre Palace, the Palace of Versailles, the Royal Palace of Caserta and the Castle of Fontainebleau. It has more than 500 rooms and contains seven gardens and eight courtyards. Although most famous for Mantegna's frescos in the Camera degli Sposi, they have many other very significant architectural and painted elements.
The Baronci Altarpiece was a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael. His first recorded commission, it was made for Andrea Baronci's chapel in the church of Sant'Agostino in Città di Castello, near Urbino. The altarpiece was seriously damaged during an earthquake in 1789, and since 1849 fragments of the original painting have been part of different collections.
The Madonna della Seggiola or The Madonna della Sedia is an oil on panel Madonna painting by the High Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, executed c. 1513–1514, and housed at the Palazzo Pitti Collection in Florence, Italy. Although there is documentation on its arrival to its current location, Palazzo Pitti, it is still unknown who commissioned the painting; however, it has been in the Medici family since the 16th century.
The Palazzo Grimani of Santa Maria Formosa is a State museum, located in Venice in the Castello district, near Campo Santa Maria Formosa.
The Italian Renaissance garden was a new style of garden which emerged in the late 15th century at villas in Rome and Florence, inspired by classical ideals of order and beauty, and intended for the pleasure of the view of the garden and the landscape beyond, for contemplation, and for the enjoyment of the sights, sounds and smells of the garden itself.
The Renaissance in Rome occupied a period from the mid-15th to the mid-16th centuries, a period which spawned such masters as Michelangelo and Raphael, who left an indelible mark on Western figurative art. The city had been a magnet for artists wishing to study its classical ruins since the early 15th century. A revived interest in the Classics brought about the first archaeological study of Roman remains by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi and the sculptor Donatello, both Florentines. This inspired a corresponding classicism in painting and sculpture, which manifested itself in the paintings of Masaccio and Uccello. Pisanello and his assistants also frequently took inspiration from ancient remains, but their approach was essentially cataloguing, acquiring a repertoire of models to be exploited later.
The Stufetta del cardinal Bibbiena is a small room on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican which is decorated with a cycle of erotic frescoes painted in 1516 by Raphael. The frescos depict mythological scenes from Ovid and Maurus Servius Honoratus in an antique style echoing Ancient Roman interior décor of the Domus Aurea which had also inspired the decoration of the Raphael Rooms and the Vatican loggias.
Adoration of the Shepherds is the title of a lost drawing by Raphael, described in a letter of 8 September 1508, from Raphael to his friend Francesco Raibolini alias Francesco Francia. This letter's contents were first published in 1678, in Carlo Cesare Malvasia's book Felsina Pittrice. Malvasia gave a full account of the letter, which he claimed to have found among the papers of Count Antonio Lambertini in Bologna. While the existence and contents of the letter are disputed, according to Malvasia it described the delivery of a drawing of the Adoration of the Shepherds to Francesco Francia. This drawing has been considered lost or never to have existed.