The Vatican exhibits Rafael’s legacy with the reopening of the Constantine room 10 years after its restoration

After a decade of thorough restoration, the imposing Constantine room, in the apostolic palace of the Vatican, which appears Rafael’s masterpiece that represents Constantine’s victory against Majencio on the Milvio bridge, has been returned to its original splendor.

This space, the largest of the well -known Rafael stays, was partially closed to the public since 2015 due to delicate conservation works that, finally, have culminated with a qualified result as “exemplary” by the direction of the Vatican museums.

“In a way, we have rewritten the history of art,” he explained during the presentation to the press, held at the Vatican Museums on Thursday, June 26, the director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta.

Together with her, Fabrizio Biferali, supervisor of the Art Department of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, also intervened; Fabio Piacentini and Francesca Persegati, of the Painting Restoration Laboratory and woody materials; and Fabio Morresi, responsible for the Cabinet of Scientific Research underlining the scientific, technical and symbolic value of a project that has brought to light revolutionary discoveries on the techniques and methods of the Renaissance teacher.

The restoration, which began in March 2015 and ended in December 2024, has allowed not only to recover the brightness of the frescoes in charge of Pope Leo X to Rafael Sanzio (1483–1520), but also reveal important technical and artistic novelties about one of the great workshops of the Renaissance.

The process, developed in eight phases, began on the wall of The vision of the cross and concluded with the vault decorated by Tommaso Laureti. The planning of the scaffolding followed the same sequence as the original execution of the paintings, which allowed a diachronic reading of the evolution of the set.

Rafael and oil painting: a revolutionary finding

One of the great revelations of the project has been the confirmation that two female figures – the Courtesy and the Justice– They were executed directly by Rafael in oil, an extremely unusual technique for murals at that time. “We knew for the sources Rafael did evidence, but we didn’t know which ones,” Jatta explained.

Thanks to scientific analysis such as infrared riflectography at 1900 nanometers, ultraviolet false color and chemical studies of pictorial layer, a special colofonia preparation was identified, a natural resin heated and applied on the wall. This technique would have allowed Rafael to perform touch -ups and achieve a visual unit that is not possible with the traditional fresco.

“This was his last major decorative company and represents an authentic technical revolution,” said Piacentini, responsible for the project since its inception. The presence of nails on the wall indicates that its intention was to paint the entire room in oil, a project interrupted by its premature death in 1520, when I was only 37 years old,

The continuation of the work was in the hands of his disciples Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni, who executed the rest of the scenes to the fresco. “It has been a job of years, comparable to a Renaissance collective work: restaurateurs, chemicals, engineers and heritage experts have worked as in an authentic workshop,” said Jatta, who also praised Persegati’s coordination in the oldest laboratory in the Vatican.

A pictorial palimpsest of the 16th century

The Constantine Chamber, conceived for official receptions and appointed in honor of the emperor who allowed the freedom of worship, and, therefore, took Christianity with the edict of Milan (313 AD), constitutes a kind of palimpsest (old tablet in which the written was erased to return to write) artistic. It was decorated over more than 60 years under five pontificate – of Leo X to Sixto V -, with interventions by different artists and workshops, which makes it an exceptional synthesis of the Roman painting of the 16th century.

In its walls four key episodes are represented: The vision of the cross, the battle of the Milvio bridge, the baptism of Constantine y The donation of Rome. All of them symbolize the transition from pagan Rome to Christian Rome, and constitute, according to Jatta, “the political and programmatically more importantly of the whole.”

A vault that deceives the eye

Another climax of the restoration was the recovery of the vault painted with an allegorical scene of the triumph of Christianity over paganism by Tommaso Laureti under the pontificate of Sixto V. Among the findings a central carpet in trapTojo highlights, which simulates a sumptuous tissue painted directly on the pavement.

Replacing the old wooden roof, Laureti created an impressive prodigy of illusionist perspective with games of lights and shadows that now, after cleaning, can be admired in all their beauty.

An exemplary restoration, a model for the future

The project has been possible thanks to the patronage of the New York chapter of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums and of the Carlson Foundation, together with the institutional support of the Presidency of the Government of the State of the city of the Vatican and its General Secretariat.

The work was documented entirely by laser scans and 3D models, becoming an international reference for interventions on large wall decorations. In addition, the detailed study of plaster strata allowed to rebuild the exact chronology of frescoes.

Fabio Morresi, head of the Cabinet of Scientific Research of the Vatican Museums summed up the spirit of intervention with words that evoke both science and poetry:

“The most exciting thing is how the artists of the past managed to transform matter and chemistry into something wonderful.”

The reopening of the Constantine room not only recovers a key space of the Vatican Museum tour, but also returns to humanity a masterpiece of the Renaissance, testimony of the Rafael genius.