5The Stanze di Raffaello: the triumph of Christian Humanism
After Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, it is right to pay homage to the other great Renaissance architect, Raphael. It was precisely to the young man from Urbino, in fact, that Julius II wanted to entrust the work for his private rooms, since then called Stanze di Raffaello.
A work started in 1508 and then completed by the master’s pupils after his death in 1520. There are four rooms, each decorated with a specific iconographic program aimed at enhancing the union between classical-humanistic and Christian culture: Room of the Segnatura, The Room of Heliodorus, The Room of the Borgo Fire and the Room of Constantine. Among the various frescoes painted by Sanzio, pay your attention in particular to the School of Athens, in the Stanza della Segnatura, where Plato and Aristotle still today indicate to humanity the path of truth and wisdom.
