Prudentia

1508

Moves to Rome at the invitation of Julius II

The new pope, Julius II, invited Raphael to Rome, perhaps at the suggestion of his architect Bramante, a distant relative of the artist. Unlike Michelangelo, kept waiting for months after his summons, Raphael was immediately commissioned to fresco what was to become the pope's private library, a far larger commission than any he had had before.

1510–1511

Paints “The School of Athens”

Against grand architecture Raphael assembled the philosophers of antiquity with the features of his contemporaries: Plato has the face of Leonardo da Vinci, the brooding Heraclitus that of Michelangelo, Euclid that of Bramante, and Ptolemy at the right edge closely resembles Raphael himself. It is considered the finest fresco in the Stanze.

1512–1513

Paints the “Sistine Madonna”

Raphael painted the huge canvas (265 × 196 cm) for the altar of the church of San Sisto in Piacenza, commissioned by Pope Julius II, who died in 1513; the pope himself was the model for Saint Sixtus. The later legend that the artist's beloved, La Fornarina, sat for the Madonna is not supported by documents.

1514

Chief architect of St Peter's

After Bramante's death Raphael became chief architect of the new St Peter's and continued Bramante's construction of the Vatican Loggias, whose vaults his pupils painted.

1516–1520

Paints “The Transfiguration”

Raphael's last masterpiece: above, the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor before the apostles Peter, James and John; below, the apostles and the possessed boy, a part completed by Giulio Romano from the master's sketches. The unfinished painting stood at the head of the dead artist's bed.

6 April 1520

Died