Raphael’s feelings were undoubtedly mixed as he received his first commission from the powerful patron of the arts, Pope Julius II. At 25 years of age, Raffaello Sanzio was known throughout Italy as a rapidly rising star artist. Now he had been chosen to fresco four rooms in the Apostolic Palace, the pope’s official residence….

LONDON—Renaissance architects once used ancient Roman art as building materials. You read that right. In Rome, workmen quarried ancient sites and turned ancient sculptures and decorative arts into mortar. In a 1519 letter to Pope Leo X, Raphael and his friend the courtier and diplomat Baldassare Castiglione appealed to the pope to protect the city’s…

LONDON—Anyone who has played charades knows how hard it is to convey an idea without words. An artist’s challenge is to convey a moving narrative without words on a two-dimensional surface. Masters such as Italian Renaissance artist Raphael appeared to achieve this effortlessly. The foundation of these artists’ skills lies hidden behind the scenes in…

When darkness seems to shroud the world, traditional art can help. Art’s ultimate role is to uplift us by reminding us of how to be good, true, and the best we can be. When traditional artists create such enduring art, it can awaken our innate goodness. The works of Italian Renaissance master Raffaello Sanzio (better…

In the halcyon days before the pandemic, every day tens of thousands of visitors piled into the Vatican Museums to admire the extraordinary Renaissance art contained therein. Their long shuffle through vast halls would deposit them in the crowded apartments of Pope Julius II, where Raphael Sanzio frescoed the walls from 1509 to 1514. There,…

“The School of Athens” is one of the most important and fascinating frescos in Western art history. Pope Julius II commissioned the prolific young artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino to decorate his private chambers in the Vatican. The first room that Raphael (1483–1520), as he is better known, tackled was the “Stanza Della Segnatura,” or “Room of the Signature,” so-called…

Visitors to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum will soon be able to see seven of Raphael’s sublime cartoons, depicting the life of St. Paul and St. Peter, the fathers of the Christian church, in the museum’s newly refurbished Raphael Court. The refurbished gallery was due to open last year, to mark the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death….