Details of the Decorations of Raphael’s Loggia in the Vatican: the Second External Pier

One of the most significant series of studies dating from Turner’s 1819 trip to Rome was the sequence of on-the-spot pencil sketches relating to the Loggia of Raphael, a colonnaded porch on the second floor of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, decorated by Raphael (1483–1520) and his studio. The sixteenth-century loggia, which looks out over the Cortile San Damaso and St Peter’s Square, is approximately 65 metres long and 4 metres wide (215 by 13 feet) and comprised of thirteen bays. Each of the square vaults of the ceiling contains four frescoes of Biblical scenes, popularly known as ‘Raphael’s Bible’, illustrating Old and New Testament scenes from the Creation to the Last Supper. Meanwhile, the spandrels, lunettes, walls, pilasters and window piers are covered with stuccowork and painted grotesque decorations, ornamental arabesque patterns interspersed with human and animal figures, modelled after ancient Roman wall paintings such as those in Nero’s Domus Aurea on the Palatine Hill in Rome. The loggia was originally open to the elements causing the gradual deterioration of the frescoes, but in 1816 the windows had been glazed, a fact which is not obviously apparent within Turner’s sketches. Several scholars have argued that his interest in the loggia may have been prompted by contemporary British anxieties regarding the poor condition of the frescoes.1

Turner made a closely detailed visual record of the loggia, particularly concentrating on the southern end of the interior and the decoration of the first three bays and window arches, see folios 13 verso–21 (D14955–D14965). From these drawings evolved the artist’s first finished oil painting following his Italian tour, the vast canvas Rome from the Vatican. Raffaelle Accompanied by La Fornarina, Preparing his Pictures for the Decoration of the Loggia exhibited 1820 (Tate, N00503).2 It has been widely suggested that Turner thought of the idea for the picture whilst he himself was actually sketching there.3 However, the precise nature of these studies, focusing almost exclusively on the first three bays of the loggia, strongly suggests that in fact the artist had already conceived the theme before commencing his sketching campaign and was specifically gathering material with the concept already well advanced in his mind. Virtually every element recorded within his drawings was employed within the composition of the finished painting, and there are no sketches extraneous to this purpose. As Cecilia Powell has discussed, Turner was also able to cross-reference his on-the-spot sketches with detailed engravings of Raphael’s loggia which he borrowed from the Royal Academy during the later stages of the painting’s development in April 1820.4