Stanza dell’Incendio di Borgo
The iconographic program alludes to the function that the
room had at the time of Julius II when here met the Holy See's highest court,
the Signatura Gratiae et Iustitiae, chaired by the pontiff
The room later became Leo X's dining room
The paintings aim to exalt the policy of Leo X by references
to events in the lives of popes with the same name, Leo III and Leo IV
VAULT
Commissioned in 1508 by Julius II to Pietro Vannucci, aka Pietro Perugino (about 1450/1523). Raphael did not
touch the work of his teacher
In the four round
panels “Holy Trinity”, “Creator enthroned between angels and
cherubs”, “Christ as Sol Iustitiae and tempted by the devil”, “Christ between
Mercy and Justice”
WALLS
Painted in the year 1514/17 by the pupils of Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520) for Leo X
Medici (1513/21) who used the room as a dining room and wanted to show on the
walls his political aspirations
Raphael produced himself only cartoons and drawings, as he
was busy as architect of the new Basilica of St. Peter and had been appointed
Superintendent of the Antiquities of Rome
“Fire in
the Borgo neighborhood” close to the Vatican, extinguished,
according to the Liber Pontificalis, by the blessing of Pope Leo IV
(847/855) in 847
Almost completely painted by Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546) and Giovanni
Francesco Penni (about 1496/1528)
In the background there is the façade of the old Basilica of
St. Peter
“The spatial composition does not tend to harmonize in a
balanced structure the subsequent units of the action, as well as the
architecture does not form an organic dimensional container: they appear rather
like slipping surfaces, like scenes and backdrops for theater, offering to the
story a symbolic reference to the place and allowing figures to emerge in
leading roles, dominating the scene, isolated and mighty. Here the style of
Raphael has a radical transformation, which opens a new course in the history
of painting: Raphael leaves the tension to comparisons with nature and the
basis of organic form inherited from 1400s, altering the harmonious and proportional
foundation of fifteenth-century perspective. His interest focuses on the
expressiveness of the individual elements, giving up their integration” (Carlo
Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)
“The favor with which the two figurative inventions of the
'Boy embracing the column' and the 'Woman with the pitcher on her head' in the
Fire of Borgo were received and proposed again in many representations in the
sixteenth century cannot be explained only by the typically Mannerist taste for
ennobling quotations, but also by their specific iconographic role: they
propose themselves to viewers as spectators in the image, suggesting
indirectly, but with the evidence of two wonderful vivid dramatic inventions,
some type of reaction, a behavior pattern, a proposal for self-identification”
(Antonio Pinelli)
“The fresco of the Fire in the Borgo Neighborhood with its
definitive overcoming of the symmetry in architecture, with the increase of
spatial impression of the whole and the high motion content of each single
figure indicates further progress (...). Some of the individual figures, for
the lovely agreement between the motives of the clothing and the movement,
belong to the most beautiful things that Raphael ever created” (Hermann Voss)
“Coronation
of Charlemagne” by S. Leo III (795/816), by Giovanni Francesco Penni, with the help of Giulio Romano, where Charlemagne is represented with
the face of the French king Francis I and Leo III with the face of Leo X
It alludes to the agreement signed in Bologna in 1515
between Francis I and Leo X
“Naval
Victory of Leo IV over the Saracens” at Ostia in 849 by Giulio Romano, with Leo IV represented as Leo X
Behind him are portraits of Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da
Bibbiena and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, cousin of the Pope, who would later
himself become pope with the name of Clement VII (1523/34)
The painting alludes to the desire of Leo X to organize a
crusade against the Turks. He failed and it was the last time anybody tried to
organize a crusade
Leo III (795/816) was purified with a unilateral statement
in St. Peter's Basilica of “false accusations” on December 23, 800, two days
before crowning Charlemagne emperor
We do not know what kind of charges they were and, in any
case, at the time it was enough to assert one's innocence before God to be believed
innocent. The character with the gold chain on the left is Charlemagne
The painting alludes to the Lateran Council of the years
1512/17 that Leo X was leading at that time, during which he reaffirmed the
bull of Boniface VIII Unam Sanctam according to which the pope was
accountable only to God
It has been suggested that the Reformation could have been
avoided if the reforms of the Lateran Council had been more innovative or fully
implemented. The promulgation of the 95 theses of Martin Luther in fact took
place only six months after the closing of the Council itself
“The spiritual tension that had supported the programs of the
first two rooms relaxes here to give way to the courtesan celebration of the
reigning pope” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)
In the lower part of the wall monochrome paintings “Six seated
figures of emperors and kings protectors of the Church”
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