Stanza di Eliodoro
It was destined to private audiences of the pope
The program is political and aims to document, in different
historical moments, from the Old Testament to medieval times, the miraculous
protection given by God to the Church, threatened in its faith (Mass
of Bolsena), in the person of the pontiff (Liberation of St. Peter), in
its territory (Encounter of Leo the Great with Attila) and in its assets
(Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple)
The subjects of the paintings were also chosen to express
the political program of Julius II Della Rovere (1503/13), aimed to restore the
threatened temporal power of the papacy and aimed at freeing Italy, at that
time occupied by the French
In the grotesque and in the arcades some parts are
attributed to Luca Signorelli, Bramantino, Lorenzo Lotto
and Cesare da Sesto (1477/1523)
Two scenes in monochrome “Wheat harvest” and “Grape harvest”
painted in 1702/03 by Carlo Maratta (1625/1713)
VAULT
Painted by Guillaume de Marcillat
(about 1469/1529) after Raphael's design. The four scenes take up the themes of
the walls below with relevant
biblical stories
WALLS
Great masterpieces by Raffaello
Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520) painted in the years 1512/14 with his
assistants:
“Leo the
Great stops the invasion of Attila” with the help of Giulio Romano and Giovanni
Francesco Penni
On the vault “History of
Noah” as a reminder that God always saves the righteous
Leo X Medici (1513/21) appears twice, both as Pope and as
cardinal, since after the death of Julius II in 1513 the portrait was replaced
with that of the new pope
“What Raphael still had not dared in the Expulsion of
Heliodorus, a complete violation of the symmetry, was obtained with the
conditions imposed by the subject in the fresco with Leo the Great stopping the
invasion of Attila. The meeting takes place in the open field, so there was no
support from central architecture. Even that unnatural 'tectonic' quality of
the landscape was abandoned, which in Parnassus had been caused by the need to
adapt the fresco to a wall with a window. In the part with figures the contrast
of the two halves of the scene is reminiscent of the fresco of Heliodorus;
however the group of the pope and his retinue, that there appeared only as an
aid for the composition, is entered here in the dramatic action and has thus
lost the appearance of idle immobility” (Hermann Voss)
On the vault “Sacrifice
of Isaac” example of obedience and faith
The miracle of Bolsena, according to tradition, occurred in
1263 in the town in the province of Viterbo: while a priest was celebrating
Mass, the consecrated wafer would have bled
The miracle was officially recognized by the Catholic Church
and this event gave rise to the feast of Corpus Christi
In the painting we see Julius II who assists at Mass in
memory of his visit in 1506 in Orvieto, where the Sacred Body is preserved, the
altar cloth stained with blood
In the face of the only woman dressed in black on the left
some scholars think to recognize the daughter of Julius II, Felice Della
Rovere, one of the most influential women of the Renaissance,
also thanks to her marriage to Gian Giordano Orsini
“If the fresco of Heliodorus inaugurated that chiaroscuro
that strongly dominates and subordinates the individual shades of color to the
whole, to the space, the Mass of Bolsena is surprising just because of the
harmonic fullness of color and its beauty. Raphael, who in his paintings on
wood makes you feel mostly the lack of taste for the real, sensual charm of colors, in this fresco exploits the
special beauty of the fresco technique like few other artists” (Hermann Voss)
“Another element that arouses astonishment in the art of
Raphael, is, for example, in the Room of Heliodorus, the use of light and the
study of Venetian painting. Scenes such as the Mass of Bolsena or the Liberation
of St. Peter denote no doubt the study of Venetian painting, but Raphael
reinterprets everything, everything merges into a personal style with a unique
technique” (Federico Zeri)
“Expulsion
of Heliodorus” with the help of Giulio
Romano and Giovanni Ricamatore aka Giovanni da
Udine (1487/1564)
On the vault “Burning
Bush” representing the inviolability of Church property
The story is taken from the Book of Maccabees in the Bible:
Heliodorus of Antioch was a minister of King Seleucus IV of Syria in charge of
desecrating the Temple of Jerusalem
Onias the priest prays to God at the center of the scene and
then a divine messenger on horseback appears, with two assistants on foot, or
half-flying, sending off and beating up Heliodorus and his thugs to the right
of the scene
The guy with
the beard who holds the chair of Julius II on the right is
considered a self-portrait by Raphael
Under the painting graffito
by a Landsknecht, a German mercenary soldier in 1527 during the Sack of Rome: V.
K. Imp. - Got hab dy sela Borbons = vivat Karolus Imperator - God has the
soul of the Bourbon
“The space created by the deep and dark nave traversed by
gold flashes creates a strong illusion of breaching of the wall, which draws
the viewer in the action and arouses in him an intense feeling of immediacy.
The two distinct lines in the side scenes create violent dynamic tensions in
the composition, enhanced by dramatic and agitated movements of the figures,
effectively rendering the flagrancy of the divine intervention” (Carlo
Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)
“Only in the Room of Heliodorus Raphael's tension becomes fully
understandable: if the Expulsion of Heliodorus preserves the principle of
symmetry in architecture at least, the very monumentality of the figures,
however, smothers the architectural element, and the painting style strips it
of its rigidity to the point that it gives an impression of asymmetry. While in
the two main frescoes of the first room, the Dispute and the School of Athens,
the movement presses from both sides in equal measure towards the center of the
scene, in the fresco of Heliodorus the latter remains completely empty. The
dramatic content focuses instead on the right half of the scene, in a group
which for the energy of the movement and the passion of the expression does not
seem to belong to the first Raphael. The left half restores the balance with
its extreme calm” (Hermann Voss)
“Liberation
of St. Peter” with the help of Giulio
Romano
On the vault “Jacob's
Ladder” prefiguration of the founding of the Church
The Liberation of St. Peter is one of the most striking
paintings in the history of art
“The extraordinary emotional power of this work is mainly due
to the unusual treatment of light that becomes the protagonist in the image.
For each moment of the action corresponds a different characterization of light
sources so intensely expressive to contrast with the darkness of the cell and
of the night and, at the same time, to mark the unity of the composition
without no longer any need of supporting geometric patterns” (Carlo Bertelli,
Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)
“Even more daring than the Mass of Bolsena and apparently
even richer in effects is the next work, the Liberation of St. Peter, in which
the chiaroscuro is used as the basis of its conception, in the joint action of
the three different types of lighting: natural light (moonlight), artificial
light (torches) and supernatural light (glory of the angel). On the other hand
this deep work, which moves in a particular way beyond the boundaries of time,
could be considered more as an absolutely personal inspiration of the genius of
Raphael that as a model rich in influence for the following period” (Hermann
Voss)
Under the fresco, between the caryatids there is the word Glovis
connected to the Medici family: the luck of Giuliano de' Medici, the pope's
brother, bad for so many years, had begun to change, to turn positive
The mysterious word Glovis
read backwards without the last letter is in fact si volge which in
Italian means it is turning
,_detail/Estancia_de_Heliodoro_(Misa_de_Bolsena),_detail.jpg?disposition=download){kind=link}
