Vatican Begins Massive Restoration of Raphael’s Loggia

500 years ago, Raphael designed frescoes for the second-floor loggia in the Vatican, and now the Vatican Museums and the World Monuments Fund plan to restore them in a projected five-year effort. The loggia, painted in 1517–1519, was originally intended as a private space for the pope. While fellow artist Giulio Romano and Raphael’s workshop handled most of the practical work on the loggia frescoes, the vision is all Raphael.

Each of the loggia’s 13 bays is decorated with four different biblical scenes. While less famous than the stanze that house The School of Athens and The Parnassus, they are a delight in their own right. “The Loggia of Raphael is among the most important and most fragile artistic ensembles in the world—a place where the full creative ambition of the Renaissance and the artistic genius of Raphael and his workshop are preserved in astonishing detail,” explained Bénédicte de Montlaur, President and CEO of World Monuments Fund.

Raphael took much of his inspiration for the loggia from the so-called Golden House of Nero, or Domus Aurea, which was buried in ancient times and rediscovered in the late 15th century. The word “grotesque” comes from some of the stylized images that artists saw in the Domus Aurea and other Ancient Roman sites, because it was underground, hence the link to “grotto.” Renaissance homages like the Raphael loggia are now possibly the best way to understand what was once so inspiring about the freshly discovered ruins: after over five centuries of leaks, moisture entrapment, smoke, fading, and archaically flawed to nonexistent preservation efforts, the frescos that once inspired are now so faded and compromised that it can take imagination and a sense of historical context to understand exactly what set some of history’s greatest artistic minds on fire.

The loggia itself has suffered over time. Sculptor Antonio Canova, for example, enclosed the eastern arches with windows. Canova may have been a genius of neoclassicism, but he had no way of knowing that an architectural decision he made in the early 19th century would alter the microclimate, one of many past errors that over 20 conservators involved in the $5.5 million restoration will lovingly and painstakingly be working to counteract as they preserve the Raphael loggia for future generations. “Raphael’s loggia is a magnificent treasure that belongs to all humanity,” observed funder Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Foundation. “Its restoration will bring back to life one of the highest expressions of decorative art while creating a lasting legacy through the conservators trained along the way.”