VATICAN MUSEUMS - BORGIA'S APARTMENT (second part)

Room V – Of the Saints

Masterpiece by Pinturicchio: friezes in stucco and gilded with representations of the “Myth of Osiris, and Io and the bull Apis” an allusion to the bull, a symbol of the Borgia family

From the lunette above the entrance towards left:

“Visitation”, “St. Paul the Hermit and St. Anthony Abbot in the Thebaid”, “Disputation of St. Catherine of Alexandria with the philosophers before the Emperor Maximilian” (with self-portrait by Pinturicchio on the far left), “Legend of St. Barbara”, “Legend of the chaste Susanna”, “Martyrdom of St. Sebastian” with, in the background, Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo

Above the door round panel with “Madonna and Child with cherubim”

 

Room VI – Of the Mysteries of the Faith

Painted by Pinturicchio with pupils maybe Tiberio d'Assisi (about 1460-70/1524) and Bartolomeo di Giovanni

In the vault stuccos and paintings, “David”, “Solomon”, “Isaiah”, “Jeremiah”, “Malachi”, “Zephaniah”, “Micah” and “Joel”

In the lunettes from right Seven Mysteries of the Faith, the mysteries of Christ's life as opposed to the joyful mysteries of the life of Mary:

“Resurrection” with on the lower left portrait of Alexander VI kneeling, one of the finest Renaissance portraits, a true masterpiece of the highest quality

“Epiphany”, “Nativity”, “Annunciation”, “Ascension”, “Pentecost” and “Assumption”

Portraits of the twentieth century sculpted by artists such as Francesco Messina (1900/95), Alberto Giacometti (1901/66), Giovanni Prini (1877/1958) and Emilio Greco (1913/95)

 

Room VII – Of the Popes

It was the largest room, where the official papal ceremonies were held

The ceiling collapsed disastrously in 1500 during a ceremony with the pope present. Alexander VI was miraculously safe but many people died

It was rebuilt in 1521 with stucco and frescoes by Giovanni Ricamatore aka Giovanni da Udine (1487/1564) and Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga (1501/47) who painted the “Center of the ceiling with four angels in foreshortening” for Leo X Medici (1513/21)

“They go beyond the effects of light inaugurated by Raphael, while the accent on the elegant graphic elements must be ascribed to his Florentine education” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“The assistant of Perin del Vaga was Giovanni da Udine, but the invention of the whole set comes exclusively from him. The task was of great importance, but it was only designed in a decorative way, not with that purity of taste that would have been worthy of Raphael. The subject - the seven planets - looks like just an excuse to create a system of panels with grotesques and small ovals with scenes containing figures, all well balanced although rich in variations. At the center is a circle with four Victories, whose garments take on a rhythmic and wonderful grace; the distribution of the whole receives from this central point its accent and its valuable support” (Hermann Voss)

The OTHER ROOMS from Room VIII to Room LV do not have significant decorations, and house, like the first seven, the marvelous Collection of Religious Modern Art

VATICAN MUSEUMS - BORGIA'S APARTMENT (first part)

APPARTAMENTO BORGIA

 

1492/95 Bernardino di Betto aka Pinturicchio (1454/1513) and assistants including Antonio del Massaro aka Antonio da Viterbo or Pastura (about 1450/1516), Tiberio d'Assisi (about 1460-70/1524), Benedetto Bonfigli, Bartolomeo di Giovanni and Pietro d'Andrea da Volterra for Alexander VI Borgia (1492/1503) who lived here

It was later also used by Julius II, but only until 1507 when, tired of living in the same apartment that belonged to his bitter enemy, he moved upstairs

“Pinturicchio like Perugino exploits his paintings but rather for the hedonistic taste for colorful images than for the principles of faith and instruction of the faithful. Just because the pleasure of the eyes also please the intellect, he creates with the same liveliness figures in stories of saints, mythological tales and contemporary events. It is without doubt the most secular of the painters of his time” (Giulio Carlo Argan)

“The iconographic program of the frescoes, of great doctrinal complexity, blended biblical exegesis of the early centuries with the latest hagiographic sources and hermetic currents of contemporary thought. At a formal level, a legacy of the late Gothic updated to the modern culture of perspective, overlapped to an adorned style of Spanish-Moorish origin, linked to the Valencian origins of the client” (Explanatory panel in the Room of Mysteries of Faith)

The first three rooms are included in the TORRE BORGIA (Borgia Tower) dating to the years 1492/94 and corresponding to the Sala dell'Immacolata (Room of the Immaculate Conception) upstairs

 

Room I – Of the Sibyls

 

In 1500 two assassins of Cesare Borgia killed here Alfonso I of Aragon, the second husband of Lucrezia Borgia, in his bed

Twelve lunettes with “Sibyls and Prophets” and above “Eight little stories with astronomical symbols” (with seven planets, and a discussion among astronomers and armillary sphere) by pupils of Pinturicchio including probably Antonio da Viterbo

 

Room II

 

No frescoes in this room

 

Room III – Of the Creed

 

In the twelve lunettes “Prophets and Apostles” with scrolls reproducing the verses of the Creed, maybe painted by Piermatteo Lauro di Manfredo aka Piermatteo d'Amelia (1446-48/about 1506)

 

Room IV – Of the Liberal Arts

 

Maybe it was the study of Alexander VI and the place where his dead body was exposed

“Fireplace” of the sixteenth century maybe by Simone Mosca and designed by Jacopo Tatti aka Jacopo Sansovino (1486/1570)

Remains of the original tiles in the floor

In the two vaults heraldic emblems of the Borgia family “Bull and radiant crown”

In the lunettes “Arts of the trivium” (grammar, dialectic and rhetoric) and “Arts of the Quadrivium” (geometry, arithmetic, music and geometry) with celebrities in the cultural world of the fifteenth century symbolizing the different disciplines, maybe painted by Tiberio d'Assisi (about 1460-70/1524) and Lorenzo da Viterbo (about 1444/72)

In the arch that separates the room in two frescoes with the theme of “Justice”

From the Room of Liberal Arts gateway to some small rooms including Alexander VI's bedroom and the treasury