Alla Scoperta dei Musei Vaticani (2015): Season 1, Episode 2 - L'età d'oro del Rinascimento - full transcript
Our step inside
the Vatican Museums,
will lead us to the discovery
of the Renaissance,
an extraordinary and fundamental
period for art, not only Italian.
The Popes of the fifteenth
century and the sixteenth
century acquired and
enriched their collections
buying artifacts of the Classical Age
found during the excavations,
as well they commissioned new works,
let's say they were
"mecenati" that is patrons of art.
Maecenas was one of the counselors,
and personal friend
of Augustus, and he had
formed a kind
of club of intellectuals and artists.
He protected them and commissioned works;
among them there were Virgil,
and also Ovidio, Properzio...
It was right on Maecenas' impulse,
that the Aeneid was written.
The popes of the Renaissance
behaved exactly as "mecenati".
There was also another fact:
Lorenzo dei Medici, another
"mecenate", died
in Florence, a place that before his death
had been a point of attraction for artists.
It was 1492 and now in Florence
atmosphere was hostile to art,
mainly because of
Savonarola's sermons, so
many artists came from Florence
to Rome;
and it was for this reason
that in the same years,
in those crucial years,
you could find here in Rome,
three great geniuses:
Michelangelo, Leonardo e Raphael.
On August 6th, 1492,
on the Throne of Peter,
CULTURE AND CHIRSTIANITY,
PONTIFICIA UNIVERSITA' LATERANENSE.
Rodrigo Borgia was elected
Pope with the name of Alexander VI.
There was a negative shadow
over him, weighing for centuries.
Lustful, immoral,
violent, even murderer:
He was unscrupulous, yes, but also skilled
WRITER AND ESSAYIST
in government management,
prayerful, devout,
and then with his piety,
he was capable
to reform the religious orders,
to promote the missions,
and many other aspects.
Alexander VI stated
vigorously his power
and his ostentation was
a way to reaffirm his power.
His contemporary Dominican
Girolamo Savonarola condemned him.
In a Florence square, on a pyramid
on which was put the effigy of Satan,
were burned all the vanities:
objects of vanity like
card games,
the most lascivious paintings,
paintings, mirrors,
but even books,
like the Divina Commedia,
and the books of Dante,
Boccaccio, Petrarca.
Savonarola was the opposite
of the Pope and the two
could not coexist, as we'd say today.
An irreconcilable conflict
was bound to happen between them,
a conflict that led to
the excommunication of Girolamo Savonarola
and then also to his death sentence:
he was hanged and his body
was burned.
The Borgia apartment
was the ceremonial apartment of
Pope Alexander VI.
The Rooms of the great ceremonies,
VATICAN MUSEUMS, MODERN ART UNIT
where the Papal Bulls and other
important documents were signed.
The Pope came from Valencia,
a Mediterranean city,
in the Iberian Peninsula,
where there was
an abundant, colorful
almost picturesque, artistic taste:
the typical Moorish taste.
VATICAN MUSEUMS DIRECTOR
Arriving to Rome, the Pope
wanted to reproduce that style,
recovering the same
chromatic and aesthetic feeling.
The painter who suited
perfectly to his taste,
was Bernardino di Betto
known as Pinturicchio.
A prodigious display of colors,
blue lapis lazuli,
cinnabar red, gold,
gold on gold, an infinite amount of gold,
were in the Pope's apartment:
when a person enters here, he finds
hard to believe that this was
the apartment of the head
of Christianity, but it is so.
The Pope decided to deal
with the matter of
the works organization,
not as a consortium
as in the Sistine Chapel,
but he called,
I always like to imagine,
all the unemployed painters in Perugia,
he brought them to Rome and
he made them work here.
He not checked them,
he left each ot them free to work
according to their tastes.
For this reason there's no the same harmony
we have for example
in the Sistine Chapel.
The Resurrection is the first fresco
we see when we enter the room.
It is a fresco where the Pontiff,
who is the Vicar of Christ on earth,
is represented
almost allegorically,
as a witness of the
Resurrection of Christ.
The horizons have expanded
and also his Ministry now
has new frontiers, much wider
than they were before.
Why this double approach?
ART HISTORY FULL PROFESSOR
LA SAPIENZA DI ROMA UNIVERSITY
It's something that comes from the
first centuries of the Christian era.
The pagan world was awaiting
the Coming of the Savior,
the Sibyls were, in some way,
pagan Prophetesses
who predicted
in their prophecies
a message similar to
the birth of the Messiah.
Everywhere it's a triumph,
made by stuccos, of the bull.
The bull was the heraldic
emblem of the Pope.
There are also quotes
from Egyptian mythology,
Isis and Osiris for example,
the myths of ancient Egypt.
All this was in the apartment of
a Pope of Rome and
this is a thing that can only happen here.
The successor of Pope Borgia
was Giuliano della Rovere,
who chose the name of Julius II,
probably as
a tribute to Julius Cesar,
admired
for his grit and temperament.
Actually Julius II was
a determined Pope
but his temperament didn't conform
to the world of his time
and the way of thinking of his
predecessor, Pope Borgia,
therefore he chose to live
in a different place
within the Apostolic Palace.
In order to decorate his personal rooms
he chose, after several attempts,
a young man from Urbino,
a boy of just 25 years,
a guy who had
never worked in Rome,
but he had worked in
Umbria and in Florence.
It was his first time in Rome,
but his masterpiece always
leaves us breathless.
The places we are now
are the most popular rooms
in the Vatican Museums:
the Rooms of Raphael.
He was a true "enfant prodige".
He was very young when he started
painting,
also thanks to the fact
that his father was a painter and a poet.
At 17 he was already Magister,
It means that he was an independent artist.
He trained in Urbino,
at the court of the Montefeltro,
then he worked in
the workshop of Pietro Perugino
who was his Master
for some years.
Later Raphael was in Florence,
studying Leonardo,
the young Michelangelo and
Fra 'Bartolomeo.
And then, in 1508, this boy of 25 years,
is finally in Rome,
in front of the Pope.
The Pope told him:
"You will paint the walls
of my own apartments".
These are the most famous
rooms in the world,
those that the whole world knows
as the Rooms of Raphael.
The Room of the Segnatura was
probably the main hall
of this apartment,
because it was the so-called
Private library of the Pontiff,
and here came the Pope
with his knowledge
and cultural background.
In the Room of the Segnatura,
we see
the ideal of the good governance
which is represented
WRITER AND ESSAYIST
- through Raphael's brush -
by the figure of Julius II who is
explaining the good way to govern a state,
ideally transforming it in the Eden
according to the mandate
that God gives to men.
We need, of course,
a deep reflection
about the matter of God and
the debate of the Sacrament.
There is an imminent theological
question, a philosophical reflection
on man,
and then all this is represented
in the painting "the School of Athens".
All the ancient philosophical tradition is
represented as a very interesting game:
Michelangelo is Heraclitus,
Plato is in the role of Leonardo
Euclid is Donato Bramante.
On the left, we have the group
around Pythagoras
in the upper part, Socrates discusses
with Alcibiades in his armor
and then, on the stairs,
stands Diogenes.
Without Justice you can't govern,
Without philosophy you can't govern,
without theology you can't govern,
and without Beauty
you can't govern either.
And then there is the
Parnassus, the poetry.
It is a night scene,
with all imaginable lights:
the sunrise, the moon,
torches, the divine light,
and Raphael is in competition
with the day light
coming through the window.
It was a pictorial revolution,
because he was one of the most
adventurous painters of art history.
If the Room of the Segnatura represents
the peak of his balanced and
armonious conception of art,
in the Room of Heliodorus,
he tries to settle the tensions
and to compose the opposites.
In the frescoes, We see,
the "Expulsion of Heliodorus
from the Temple":
the usurper
of the temple treasury,
who is driven away
by divine intervention.
At the right side, it is clear the scene
where the angelic Knight and
the other two angels,
throw down the usurper
in a dramatic but dynamic tension.
On the left, the Pope and his court
are entering
with calm: the "Stabilitas".
It's a composition of outstanding balance,
a perfect balance
even in the finest colors.
It is remarkable how Raphael,
and we can see it in
the Mass of Bolsena,
in the figures of the Swiss on the right,
can portrait each character
in its natural, alive, expression,
as well as the color rendering.
Raphael manages to
match all the effects
that the oil painting can give,
but with the fresco,
is much harder,
because it does not
allow nuances and transparencies
which instead
the oil painting allows.
Leo X was the great peacemaker,
as it is shown in this fresco,
and he did his mission
under the sign of spirituality,
So Raphael changed the iconography
of the fresco:
if you look carefully, the action
begins with the Principles
of the Apostles in the sky;
the Pope does not defeat Attila,
but he convinces him to withdraw.
There is an allusion to a situation
which is not historically proven:
the encounter between Leo
the Great and Attila,
which was at the Mincio
River, not in Rome;
neverthless in the background,
there are Monte Mario and the Colosseum.
In this extraordinary
flushed twilight
Leo the Great has
the features of Leo X:
a simbolic connection
between the two "Lions".
The pope advances slowly
in contrast with the hard braking
of the barbarian king and his knights,
who are forced to restrain
their race against Roma
because they had a vision of
the Apostles Peter and Paul,
who prevented their passage.
This historical episode represents
a fire that Pope Leo III succeed
to put up blessing the village
from the colonnade of St. Peter.
It's evident the contrast
between the figure
of the Pope, who quietly
gives his blessing
and people's excitement
in the foreground.
There is another historical-
mythological reference:
the Fire of the Borgo reminds
to the burning of Troy.
In fact, on the left
there is the scene of the fire of Troy
with an architectural element
of the classic culture.
Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius
are running away from Troy on fire;
they later will land
on the coast of Lazio,
founding the city of Rome.
It's thrilling to stay here
in front
of one of the masterpieces
of the entire art history:
the famous "The Fire in the
Borgo" by Raphael.
We have just seen a scene
of a dramatic event
which had taken place in front
of St. Peter's Basilica,
just few meters from
the residence of the Pope, and indeed
the Pope looking at this drama
tries to comfort the faithful.
But that Pope is not Giulio II:
in other words, he is not the Pope
who commissioned
the decorations of these rooms.
In fact Julius II had died
and a new Pope was elected:
the new Pope was Leo X Medici,
who changed
the type of decoration
in these rooms.
This explains why in these decorations
there are Popes
who have the same name of Leo X,
but they are his predecessors:
Leone IV related to
the fire of Borgo,
and then Leo III.
We see the Emperor Charlemagne
crowned by Pope Leo III.
The Room of Constantine is a great
ceremonial room,
then the Great Hall
of receptions,
and the one of the ceremonies.
Constantine is represented
in four episodes:
The Vision of the Cross,
in Hoc Signo Vinces,
that foretold his victory
in the battle against
Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge
and this is the great scene on
the main wall.
There is The Baptism.
The leader of this army, the Emperor,
is baptized by Pope Sylvester,
then the emperor gives a donation
believed to be a territorial one.
Actually, Lorenzo Valla affirmed
that the donation
was a medieval falsehood,
but at that time
it was a necessary act
to reaffirm the temporal power
of the Pope
and the "Donation of Constantine" was
an useful means in this sense,
because it sanctioned the right of the Pope
to have its own territory.
Raphael designed a project
for the whole room
and he wanted to realize it
by using a new technique;
he was audacious and
he decided to try the oil painting.
He made only two figures
in this technique, then he died.
Few artists in the history of art
have been able to fascinate
the world as Raphael.
He was a man who knew how
to earn the admiration,
the estimation of the great popes
of the early Renaissance,
Julius II and Leo X.
All the frescoes in the so-called
Rooms are by Raphael:
the Room of the Segnature,
the Room of Heliodorus,
the Room of the Fire in the Borgo,
until the great Room of Constantine,
when Raphael was already dead.
His students, in particular
Giulio Romano
continued the realization of
his project.
Sixtus IV and Julius II,
his predecessors,
had almost entirely decorated
the walls of
the Vatican Apostolic Palace.
The only part that, in a sense,
had remained free,
because of false curtains,
was just the lower part
of the walls.
BYZANTIN-MEDIEVAL UNIT CURATOR
The problem was
how to decorate it.
Raphael could do it
expressing his artistic personality,
choosing the art of tapestries.
We have news of the tapestries in Europe
since the thirteenth century,
The tapestry spread across
the noble and important
families in Europe
because it was easy
to transport, with rollers
or even just lifted with hands,
it could reach a
considerable size,
till nine meters in length,
and at the same time it was
also easy to hang.
The tapestries were then used
to create choreographic
and spectacular effects,
as great decorations
on special events.
And then there was a kind of contest
among all the major families
to possess them:
more tapestries the family had,
more important the family was.
The tapestry was a sign of a
family' richness.
We could say that
it was no longer a tapestry,
but a real textile painting.
The Pope entrusted Raphael
with a very valuable work,
also from an economic point of view.
This tapestry cycle
cost to the Pope,
Leo X Medici,
60,000 gold ducats! In order to
understand the value of 60,000 gold ducats
let's think that at the time
a good horse,
cost at most
three or four ducats.
So that money was a veritable mountain
of gold for the tapestries
which are now hosted
in the Raphael's room in the Pinacoteca.
A single artisan can't work alone
very large tapestries,
otherwise he would never end...
Let's think about how many threads
an artisan must use
to obtain all the color shades
and each time he leaves a thread
to use another one, even
at very small distances.
It's a long weaving process.
The tapestries are masterpieces,
in which the silk thread
or wool is
like the colorful stroke
of the brush.
It seems that the name of tapestry
issues from Arras,
the French town where famous tapestries
were produced in the Middle Ages.
They are very delicate masterpieces
which must clearly
be preserved from
dust, insects, moths and light.
That's why at the Vatican
there's one of the most famous
laboratories in the world
for the tapestries restoration.
It has two locations within the
Vatican.
Now we are in
just one of the laboratories.
The restorers can be
religious or secular people
but they have to be very skilful
in order to give a new future
to these ancient works.
The first necessary thing to do
is to "stabilize" the tapestry,
intended
not to re-create the missing parts,
but to block its degradation.
The same shade of these
threads is realized
in the laboratory behind us,
where, as in a
complicated chemical recipe,
the restorers try to find
the most suitable hues.
This is a patient and
very delicate work,
which is applied
again on this tapestry,
a very old one, probably many centuries,
so that it can face
again the time
and to be admired
by the next generations.
What we check a lot
is also the lighting,
because perhaps the main
responsible
of damage on tapestries
over times
has been their exposure
to light.
For instance, the
Raphael's tapestries
have some colors which are beige
on one side,
but if we look at them
from the back
(they are generally lined on the back),
we find out
that the color is purple, a color
completely different.
So if the Creation is on the vault,
the Old Testamenton is on a wall
VATICAN MUSEUMS, PAPAL CARRIAGES,
COSTUMES AND ARMS UNIT
the New Testament on the other one,
depicting the life of Christ,
the tapestries continue
the Holy Scriptures with
the representation of the
Acts of the Apostles.
In the first boat there is Peter
as a fisher of men;
in second boat,
we find precise references
to Michelangelo in the body
torsion
of John and that of James:
as they are represented,
their arms remind us
the characters painted
on the ceiling of the Sistina.
And then instead, Zebedee
is represented as a river
in the way rivers were depicted
in ancient times.
These are all references to
the ancient,
which was part of
Raphael's culture.
In 1787, Goethe left the observation of
the Vesuvius eruption
to come here in Rome
in order to attend
the exposition of these tapestries,
that accompanied the procession
of Corpus Domini.
The tapestries and the rooms are not
the only masterpieces by Raphael,
there are other artworks,
like the Pala Oddi.
The Pala Oddi is an early work,
preceding even
his arrival in Rome,
and it was made
for a church in Perugia.
And then there is the Transfiguration.
Raphael.
worked extensively on
this artwork,
apparently until the last
days of his life,
a life unfortunately
very short, only 37 years.
It is impressive to see
how Raphael,
in his relatively short life,
had completed such
extraordinary artworks.
In the upper part, the Transfiguration
shows
the balance of the composition
which is his distintive character.
The figure of Christ is in the center
those of Moses and Elijah in
the lower part, on top of the mountain
the figures of the Apostles seem
half-asleep.
The landscape is extraordinary,
the sky is reddish,
while lower
there is a convulsive scene.
The divine mystery reveals itself
in the tragedy of the world,
where the force of evil seems to leave
powerless even the disciples.
Raphael was an extraordinary
personality,
a man who really seemed
kissed by fortune,
the love of men and women,
a fully-realized career,
wealthy:
in other words, he was
a successful man.
He died at only 37 years
on April, 6, 1520.
The whole Rome
was present at his funeral,
all the people were
crying - according to Vasari -
watching the
Transfiguration by Raphael,
the painting now hosted
in the Pinacoteca,
which on that occasion,
was put behind the coffin,
in which laid the body of Raphael.
People looked and cried,
he was died but his painting
seemed to be alive, it seemed
to speak to everyone,
as a living a majestic creature.
One of the major works of
Melozzo of Ambrosi,
called Melozzo da Forli,
is surely the fresco of Sixtus IV
who is appointing Bartolomeo Sacchi,
told Platina,
as Prefect or first librarian,
VATICAN MUSEUMS,
DECORATIVE ARTS UNIT
of the Vatican Library.
The courtly space,
depicted by Melozzo,
is covered by marble
and a profusion of gold,
and classic architecture with arcades.
The Pope drawn in profile is on the throne,
at the presence of his cardinal nephews.
Actually there was a fourth character,
Giovanni della Rovere,
who had been depicted
between the future Pope, then Julius II,
and Platina himself.
His cover-up was probably
due to the fact that
he fell into disgrace,
and he was no more well-accepted
by one of the four powerful characters,
that is Girolamo Riario,
the Pope's nephew,
depicted on the extreme
left of the fresco,
who made even delete his
visual memory:
it was a real "damnatio memoriae",
probably occured
while Sixtus IV was still alive.
In 1711, this
huge frescoed complex
was unfortunately destroyed.
Some fragments were saved,
and now they are here
in the Vatican:
the main fragment
depicting the figure of Christ,
is exhibited
on the staircase of honor
of the Quirinale Palace.
They show their blond hair,
their clothes,
their colorful tunics
in the act of playing instruments
which are faithfully portraited
and therefore they are a valuable
indications of
the art of making lutes
in that period;
most of them
are playing string instruments,
although there are cymbals,
and other instruments.
It is an interesting document
of the best central Italy
painting
towards the end of the fifteenth century.
The greatest artists' artworks
make often reference
to the iconography because
it's through it
that a deep theological reflection
can be made.
We have some elements
but other elements are
totally missing.
For instance, there's a young man
sitting on a rainbow
- and angels without the wings -,
who has his arms outstretched,
put in a certain way,
but he has no signs of the Cross,
no wounds of the Passion,
not in his side,
not in the feet.
Correggio referred to
the Gospel,
in the dialogue
of Jesus with his
disciples: "who sees
me sees the Father";
so Christ is the part
visible of the Trinity,
and Christ is represented
as well
with the Holy Spirit and God the Father,
that is a unit,
in an enlightened moment.
Leonardo depicts St. Jerome
with an open arm
trying to beat his chest with a rock
as a sign of self-flagellation.
The gesture of Jerome
is dynamic even in its penance.
Vasari talking about Leonardo
ART HISTORIAN
UFFIZI GALLERY DIRECTOR
tells us his pictorial
innovations:
"He was the one to introduce
'il moto et il fiato',
that motion and breath
that St. Jerome in the Vatican
well demonstrates with his open arm,
at the moment of beating
the rock on his chest,
and the open mouth,
the "motion and breath".
St. Jerome is the prototype
of the intellectual Christian,
and here there are
all the iconographic elements:
his gesture refers
to the cardinal's hat
meaning that he rejects
the Cardinal's office
and then there are the desert,
the Cross, the Crucifixion.
Leonardo in this painting
depicts
the spiritual tension and
the psychological torment
which inhabit this lonely man,
who agonizes in the desert
reflecting on life and death.
This is Leonardo da Vinci:
his ability
to analyze, study and
understand all aspects of
the visible world,
but not only of the nature,
such as the flight of birds,
the motion of the tides,
the veins of a leaf,
the skeleton of a person,
but also what is hidden
and not seen
that is the soul, the heart,
the feelings, the thoughts.
This is what we can say
about the greatest protagonists
of Renaissance,
who have lived here,
where we are now.
With this last great name of the
Italian art,
we have concluded our visit
in the Vatican Pinacoteca:
you have seen how many
great Italian artists
are famous all over the world,
but how the Renaissance
has literally changed
the art language;
but this change
would not have been possible
without the rediscovery during
that time of the classical art,
with masterpieces
as the Apollo Belvedere.
Findings, almost accidental,
of artworks like this,
have been fundamental to rediscover
the classical sense of beauty,
and antiquity,
which gave new vigor and nourishment
to the Renaissance.
And these masterpieces
the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoon,
Torso, Venus, Perseus,
are waiting us in the next tour.
We'll discover their wonders
and their meanings.
I wait for you.
the Vatican Museums,
will lead us to the discovery
of the Renaissance,
an extraordinary and fundamental
period for art, not only Italian.
The Popes of the fifteenth
century and the sixteenth
century acquired and
enriched their collections
buying artifacts of the Classical Age
found during the excavations,
as well they commissioned new works,
let's say they were
"mecenati" that is patrons of art.
Maecenas was one of the counselors,
and personal friend
of Augustus, and he had
formed a kind
of club of intellectuals and artists.
He protected them and commissioned works;
among them there were Virgil,
and also Ovidio, Properzio...
It was right on Maecenas' impulse,
that the Aeneid was written.
The popes of the Renaissance
behaved exactly as "mecenati".
There was also another fact:
Lorenzo dei Medici, another
"mecenate", died
in Florence, a place that before his death
had been a point of attraction for artists.
It was 1492 and now in Florence
atmosphere was hostile to art,
mainly because of
Savonarola's sermons, so
many artists came from Florence
to Rome;
and it was for this reason
that in the same years,
in those crucial years,
you could find here in Rome,
three great geniuses:
Michelangelo, Leonardo e Raphael.
On August 6th, 1492,
on the Throne of Peter,
CULTURE AND CHIRSTIANITY,
PONTIFICIA UNIVERSITA' LATERANENSE.
Rodrigo Borgia was elected
Pope with the name of Alexander VI.
There was a negative shadow
over him, weighing for centuries.
Lustful, immoral,
violent, even murderer:
He was unscrupulous, yes, but also skilled
WRITER AND ESSAYIST
in government management,
prayerful, devout,
and then with his piety,
he was capable
to reform the religious orders,
to promote the missions,
and many other aspects.
Alexander VI stated
vigorously his power
and his ostentation was
a way to reaffirm his power.
His contemporary Dominican
Girolamo Savonarola condemned him.
In a Florence square, on a pyramid
on which was put the effigy of Satan,
were burned all the vanities:
objects of vanity like
card games,
the most lascivious paintings,
paintings, mirrors,
but even books,
like the Divina Commedia,
and the books of Dante,
Boccaccio, Petrarca.
Savonarola was the opposite
of the Pope and the two
could not coexist, as we'd say today.
An irreconcilable conflict
was bound to happen between them,
a conflict that led to
the excommunication of Girolamo Savonarola
and then also to his death sentence:
he was hanged and his body
was burned.
The Borgia apartment
was the ceremonial apartment of
Pope Alexander VI.
The Rooms of the great ceremonies,
VATICAN MUSEUMS, MODERN ART UNIT
where the Papal Bulls and other
important documents were signed.
The Pope came from Valencia,
a Mediterranean city,
in the Iberian Peninsula,
where there was
an abundant, colorful
almost picturesque, artistic taste:
the typical Moorish taste.
VATICAN MUSEUMS DIRECTOR
Arriving to Rome, the Pope
wanted to reproduce that style,
recovering the same
chromatic and aesthetic feeling.
The painter who suited
perfectly to his taste,
was Bernardino di Betto
known as Pinturicchio.
A prodigious display of colors,
blue lapis lazuli,
cinnabar red, gold,
gold on gold, an infinite amount of gold,
were in the Pope's apartment:
when a person enters here, he finds
hard to believe that this was
the apartment of the head
of Christianity, but it is so.
The Pope decided to deal
with the matter of
the works organization,
not as a consortium
as in the Sistine Chapel,
but he called,
I always like to imagine,
all the unemployed painters in Perugia,
he brought them to Rome and
he made them work here.
He not checked them,
he left each ot them free to work
according to their tastes.
For this reason there's no the same harmony
we have for example
in the Sistine Chapel.
The Resurrection is the first fresco
we see when we enter the room.
It is a fresco where the Pontiff,
who is the Vicar of Christ on earth,
is represented
almost allegorically,
as a witness of the
Resurrection of Christ.
The horizons have expanded
and also his Ministry now
has new frontiers, much wider
than they were before.
Why this double approach?
ART HISTORY FULL PROFESSOR
LA SAPIENZA DI ROMA UNIVERSITY
It's something that comes from the
first centuries of the Christian era.
The pagan world was awaiting
the Coming of the Savior,
the Sibyls were, in some way,
pagan Prophetesses
who predicted
in their prophecies
a message similar to
the birth of the Messiah.
Everywhere it's a triumph,
made by stuccos, of the bull.
The bull was the heraldic
emblem of the Pope.
There are also quotes
from Egyptian mythology,
Isis and Osiris for example,
the myths of ancient Egypt.
All this was in the apartment of
a Pope of Rome and
this is a thing that can only happen here.
The successor of Pope Borgia
was Giuliano della Rovere,
who chose the name of Julius II,
probably as
a tribute to Julius Cesar,
admired
for his grit and temperament.
Actually Julius II was
a determined Pope
but his temperament didn't conform
to the world of his time
and the way of thinking of his
predecessor, Pope Borgia,
therefore he chose to live
in a different place
within the Apostolic Palace.
In order to decorate his personal rooms
he chose, after several attempts,
a young man from Urbino,
a boy of just 25 years,
a guy who had
never worked in Rome,
but he had worked in
Umbria and in Florence.
It was his first time in Rome,
but his masterpiece always
leaves us breathless.
The places we are now
are the most popular rooms
in the Vatican Museums:
the Rooms of Raphael.
He was a true "enfant prodige".
He was very young when he started
painting,
also thanks to the fact
that his father was a painter and a poet.
At 17 he was already Magister,
It means that he was an independent artist.
He trained in Urbino,
at the court of the Montefeltro,
then he worked in
the workshop of Pietro Perugino
who was his Master
for some years.
Later Raphael was in Florence,
studying Leonardo,
the young Michelangelo and
Fra 'Bartolomeo.
And then, in 1508, this boy of 25 years,
is finally in Rome,
in front of the Pope.
The Pope told him:
"You will paint the walls
of my own apartments".
These are the most famous
rooms in the world,
those that the whole world knows
as the Rooms of Raphael.
The Room of the Segnatura was
probably the main hall
of this apartment,
because it was the so-called
Private library of the Pontiff,
and here came the Pope
with his knowledge
and cultural background.
In the Room of the Segnatura,
we see
the ideal of the good governance
which is represented
WRITER AND ESSAYIST
- through Raphael's brush -
by the figure of Julius II who is
explaining the good way to govern a state,
ideally transforming it in the Eden
according to the mandate
that God gives to men.
We need, of course,
a deep reflection
about the matter of God and
the debate of the Sacrament.
There is an imminent theological
question, a philosophical reflection
on man,
and then all this is represented
in the painting "the School of Athens".
All the ancient philosophical tradition is
represented as a very interesting game:
Michelangelo is Heraclitus,
Plato is in the role of Leonardo
Euclid is Donato Bramante.
On the left, we have the group
around Pythagoras
in the upper part, Socrates discusses
with Alcibiades in his armor
and then, on the stairs,
stands Diogenes.
Without Justice you can't govern,
Without philosophy you can't govern,
without theology you can't govern,
and without Beauty
you can't govern either.
And then there is the
Parnassus, the poetry.
It is a night scene,
with all imaginable lights:
the sunrise, the moon,
torches, the divine light,
and Raphael is in competition
with the day light
coming through the window.
It was a pictorial revolution,
because he was one of the most
adventurous painters of art history.
If the Room of the Segnatura represents
the peak of his balanced and
armonious conception of art,
in the Room of Heliodorus,
he tries to settle the tensions
and to compose the opposites.
In the frescoes, We see,
the "Expulsion of Heliodorus
from the Temple":
the usurper
of the temple treasury,
who is driven away
by divine intervention.
At the right side, it is clear the scene
where the angelic Knight and
the other two angels,
throw down the usurper
in a dramatic but dynamic tension.
On the left, the Pope and his court
are entering
with calm: the "Stabilitas".
It's a composition of outstanding balance,
a perfect balance
even in the finest colors.
It is remarkable how Raphael,
and we can see it in
the Mass of Bolsena,
in the figures of the Swiss on the right,
can portrait each character
in its natural, alive, expression,
as well as the color rendering.
Raphael manages to
match all the effects
that the oil painting can give,
but with the fresco,
is much harder,
because it does not
allow nuances and transparencies
which instead
the oil painting allows.
Leo X was the great peacemaker,
as it is shown in this fresco,
and he did his mission
under the sign of spirituality,
So Raphael changed the iconography
of the fresco:
if you look carefully, the action
begins with the Principles
of the Apostles in the sky;
the Pope does not defeat Attila,
but he convinces him to withdraw.
There is an allusion to a situation
which is not historically proven:
the encounter between Leo
the Great and Attila,
which was at the Mincio
River, not in Rome;
neverthless in the background,
there are Monte Mario and the Colosseum.
In this extraordinary
flushed twilight
Leo the Great has
the features of Leo X:
a simbolic connection
between the two "Lions".
The pope advances slowly
in contrast with the hard braking
of the barbarian king and his knights,
who are forced to restrain
their race against Roma
because they had a vision of
the Apostles Peter and Paul,
who prevented their passage.
This historical episode represents
a fire that Pope Leo III succeed
to put up blessing the village
from the colonnade of St. Peter.
It's evident the contrast
between the figure
of the Pope, who quietly
gives his blessing
and people's excitement
in the foreground.
There is another historical-
mythological reference:
the Fire of the Borgo reminds
to the burning of Troy.
In fact, on the left
there is the scene of the fire of Troy
with an architectural element
of the classic culture.
Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius
are running away from Troy on fire;
they later will land
on the coast of Lazio,
founding the city of Rome.
It's thrilling to stay here
in front
of one of the masterpieces
of the entire art history:
the famous "The Fire in the
Borgo" by Raphael.
We have just seen a scene
of a dramatic event
which had taken place in front
of St. Peter's Basilica,
just few meters from
the residence of the Pope, and indeed
the Pope looking at this drama
tries to comfort the faithful.
But that Pope is not Giulio II:
in other words, he is not the Pope
who commissioned
the decorations of these rooms.
In fact Julius II had died
and a new Pope was elected:
the new Pope was Leo X Medici,
who changed
the type of decoration
in these rooms.
This explains why in these decorations
there are Popes
who have the same name of Leo X,
but they are his predecessors:
Leone IV related to
the fire of Borgo,
and then Leo III.
We see the Emperor Charlemagne
crowned by Pope Leo III.
The Room of Constantine is a great
ceremonial room,
then the Great Hall
of receptions,
and the one of the ceremonies.
Constantine is represented
in four episodes:
The Vision of the Cross,
in Hoc Signo Vinces,
that foretold his victory
in the battle against
Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge
and this is the great scene on
the main wall.
There is The Baptism.
The leader of this army, the Emperor,
is baptized by Pope Sylvester,
then the emperor gives a donation
believed to be a territorial one.
Actually, Lorenzo Valla affirmed
that the donation
was a medieval falsehood,
but at that time
it was a necessary act
to reaffirm the temporal power
of the Pope
and the "Donation of Constantine" was
an useful means in this sense,
because it sanctioned the right of the Pope
to have its own territory.
Raphael designed a project
for the whole room
and he wanted to realize it
by using a new technique;
he was audacious and
he decided to try the oil painting.
He made only two figures
in this technique, then he died.
Few artists in the history of art
have been able to fascinate
the world as Raphael.
He was a man who knew how
to earn the admiration,
the estimation of the great popes
of the early Renaissance,
Julius II and Leo X.
All the frescoes in the so-called
Rooms are by Raphael:
the Room of the Segnature,
the Room of Heliodorus,
the Room of the Fire in the Borgo,
until the great Room of Constantine,
when Raphael was already dead.
His students, in particular
Giulio Romano
continued the realization of
his project.
Sixtus IV and Julius II,
his predecessors,
had almost entirely decorated
the walls of
the Vatican Apostolic Palace.
The only part that, in a sense,
had remained free,
because of false curtains,
was just the lower part
of the walls.
BYZANTIN-MEDIEVAL UNIT CURATOR
The problem was
how to decorate it.
Raphael could do it
expressing his artistic personality,
choosing the art of tapestries.
We have news of the tapestries in Europe
since the thirteenth century,
The tapestry spread across
the noble and important
families in Europe
because it was easy
to transport, with rollers
or even just lifted with hands,
it could reach a
considerable size,
till nine meters in length,
and at the same time it was
also easy to hang.
The tapestries were then used
to create choreographic
and spectacular effects,
as great decorations
on special events.
And then there was a kind of contest
among all the major families
to possess them:
more tapestries the family had,
more important the family was.
The tapestry was a sign of a
family' richness.
We could say that
it was no longer a tapestry,
but a real textile painting.
The Pope entrusted Raphael
with a very valuable work,
also from an economic point of view.
This tapestry cycle
cost to the Pope,
Leo X Medici,
60,000 gold ducats! In order to
understand the value of 60,000 gold ducats
let's think that at the time
a good horse,
cost at most
three or four ducats.
So that money was a veritable mountain
of gold for the tapestries
which are now hosted
in the Raphael's room in the Pinacoteca.
A single artisan can't work alone
very large tapestries,
otherwise he would never end...
Let's think about how many threads
an artisan must use
to obtain all the color shades
and each time he leaves a thread
to use another one, even
at very small distances.
It's a long weaving process.
The tapestries are masterpieces,
in which the silk thread
or wool is
like the colorful stroke
of the brush.
It seems that the name of tapestry
issues from Arras,
the French town where famous tapestries
were produced in the Middle Ages.
They are very delicate masterpieces
which must clearly
be preserved from
dust, insects, moths and light.
That's why at the Vatican
there's one of the most famous
laboratories in the world
for the tapestries restoration.
It has two locations within the
Vatican.
Now we are in
just one of the laboratories.
The restorers can be
religious or secular people
but they have to be very skilful
in order to give a new future
to these ancient works.
The first necessary thing to do
is to "stabilize" the tapestry,
intended
not to re-create the missing parts,
but to block its degradation.
The same shade of these
threads is realized
in the laboratory behind us,
where, as in a
complicated chemical recipe,
the restorers try to find
the most suitable hues.
This is a patient and
very delicate work,
which is applied
again on this tapestry,
a very old one, probably many centuries,
so that it can face
again the time
and to be admired
by the next generations.
What we check a lot
is also the lighting,
because perhaps the main
responsible
of damage on tapestries
over times
has been their exposure
to light.
For instance, the
Raphael's tapestries
have some colors which are beige
on one side,
but if we look at them
from the back
(they are generally lined on the back),
we find out
that the color is purple, a color
completely different.
So if the Creation is on the vault,
the Old Testamenton is on a wall
VATICAN MUSEUMS, PAPAL CARRIAGES,
COSTUMES AND ARMS UNIT
the New Testament on the other one,
depicting the life of Christ,
the tapestries continue
the Holy Scriptures with
the representation of the
Acts of the Apostles.
In the first boat there is Peter
as a fisher of men;
in second boat,
we find precise references
to Michelangelo in the body
torsion
of John and that of James:
as they are represented,
their arms remind us
the characters painted
on the ceiling of the Sistina.
And then instead, Zebedee
is represented as a river
in the way rivers were depicted
in ancient times.
These are all references to
the ancient,
which was part of
Raphael's culture.
In 1787, Goethe left the observation of
the Vesuvius eruption
to come here in Rome
in order to attend
the exposition of these tapestries,
that accompanied the procession
of Corpus Domini.
The tapestries and the rooms are not
the only masterpieces by Raphael,
there are other artworks,
like the Pala Oddi.
The Pala Oddi is an early work,
preceding even
his arrival in Rome,
and it was made
for a church in Perugia.
And then there is the Transfiguration.
Raphael.
worked extensively on
this artwork,
apparently until the last
days of his life,
a life unfortunately
very short, only 37 years.
It is impressive to see
how Raphael,
in his relatively short life,
had completed such
extraordinary artworks.
In the upper part, the Transfiguration
shows
the balance of the composition
which is his distintive character.
The figure of Christ is in the center
those of Moses and Elijah in
the lower part, on top of the mountain
the figures of the Apostles seem
half-asleep.
The landscape is extraordinary,
the sky is reddish,
while lower
there is a convulsive scene.
The divine mystery reveals itself
in the tragedy of the world,
where the force of evil seems to leave
powerless even the disciples.
Raphael was an extraordinary
personality,
a man who really seemed
kissed by fortune,
the love of men and women,
a fully-realized career,
wealthy:
in other words, he was
a successful man.
He died at only 37 years
on April, 6, 1520.
The whole Rome
was present at his funeral,
all the people were
crying - according to Vasari -
watching the
Transfiguration by Raphael,
the painting now hosted
in the Pinacoteca,
which on that occasion,
was put behind the coffin,
in which laid the body of Raphael.
People looked and cried,
he was died but his painting
seemed to be alive, it seemed
to speak to everyone,
as a living a majestic creature.
One of the major works of
Melozzo of Ambrosi,
called Melozzo da Forli,
is surely the fresco of Sixtus IV
who is appointing Bartolomeo Sacchi,
told Platina,
as Prefect or first librarian,
VATICAN MUSEUMS,
DECORATIVE ARTS UNIT
of the Vatican Library.
The courtly space,
depicted by Melozzo,
is covered by marble
and a profusion of gold,
and classic architecture with arcades.
The Pope drawn in profile is on the throne,
at the presence of his cardinal nephews.
Actually there was a fourth character,
Giovanni della Rovere,
who had been depicted
between the future Pope, then Julius II,
and Platina himself.
His cover-up was probably
due to the fact that
he fell into disgrace,
and he was no more well-accepted
by one of the four powerful characters,
that is Girolamo Riario,
the Pope's nephew,
depicted on the extreme
left of the fresco,
who made even delete his
visual memory:
it was a real "damnatio memoriae",
probably occured
while Sixtus IV was still alive.
In 1711, this
huge frescoed complex
was unfortunately destroyed.
Some fragments were saved,
and now they are here
in the Vatican:
the main fragment
depicting the figure of Christ,
is exhibited
on the staircase of honor
of the Quirinale Palace.
They show their blond hair,
their clothes,
their colorful tunics
in the act of playing instruments
which are faithfully portraited
and therefore they are a valuable
indications of
the art of making lutes
in that period;
most of them
are playing string instruments,
although there are cymbals,
and other instruments.
It is an interesting document
of the best central Italy
painting
towards the end of the fifteenth century.
The greatest artists' artworks
make often reference
to the iconography because
it's through it
that a deep theological reflection
can be made.
We have some elements
but other elements are
totally missing.
For instance, there's a young man
sitting on a rainbow
- and angels without the wings -,
who has his arms outstretched,
put in a certain way,
but he has no signs of the Cross,
no wounds of the Passion,
not in his side,
not in the feet.
Correggio referred to
the Gospel,
in the dialogue
of Jesus with his
disciples: "who sees
me sees the Father";
so Christ is the part
visible of the Trinity,
and Christ is represented
as well
with the Holy Spirit and God the Father,
that is a unit,
in an enlightened moment.
Leonardo depicts St. Jerome
with an open arm
trying to beat his chest with a rock
as a sign of self-flagellation.
The gesture of Jerome
is dynamic even in its penance.
Vasari talking about Leonardo
ART HISTORIAN
UFFIZI GALLERY DIRECTOR
tells us his pictorial
innovations:
"He was the one to introduce
'il moto et il fiato',
that motion and breath
that St. Jerome in the Vatican
well demonstrates with his open arm,
at the moment of beating
the rock on his chest,
and the open mouth,
the "motion and breath".
St. Jerome is the prototype
of the intellectual Christian,
and here there are
all the iconographic elements:
his gesture refers
to the cardinal's hat
meaning that he rejects
the Cardinal's office
and then there are the desert,
the Cross, the Crucifixion.
Leonardo in this painting
depicts
the spiritual tension and
the psychological torment
which inhabit this lonely man,
who agonizes in the desert
reflecting on life and death.
This is Leonardo da Vinci:
his ability
to analyze, study and
understand all aspects of
the visible world,
but not only of the nature,
such as the flight of birds,
the motion of the tides,
the veins of a leaf,
the skeleton of a person,
but also what is hidden
and not seen
that is the soul, the heart,
the feelings, the thoughts.
This is what we can say
about the greatest protagonists
of Renaissance,
who have lived here,
where we are now.
With this last great name of the
Italian art,
we have concluded our visit
in the Vatican Pinacoteca:
you have seen how many
great Italian artists
are famous all over the world,
but how the Renaissance
has literally changed
the art language;
but this change
would not have been possible
without the rediscovery during
that time of the classical art,
with masterpieces
as the Apollo Belvedere.
Findings, almost accidental,
of artworks like this,
have been fundamental to rediscover
the classical sense of beauty,
and antiquity,
which gave new vigor and nourishment
to the Renaissance.
And these masterpieces
the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoon,
Torso, Venus, Perseus,
are waiting us in the next tour.
We'll discover their wonders
and their meanings.
I wait for you.