Rafael incendio del borgo

Rafael

El fuego en el Borgo es un cuadro realizado por el taller del artista renacentista italiano Rafael entre 1514 y 1517[1] Aunque se supone que Rafael realizó los diseños de la compleja composición, lo más probable es que el fresco fuera pintado por su ayudante Giulio Romano. El cuadro formaba parte del encargo de Rafael para decorar las salas que hoy se conocen como las Stanze di Raffaello, en el Palacio Apostólico del Vaticano. Representa al Papa León IV deteniendo un incendio en el año 847 con una bendición desde un balcón frente a la antigua basílica de San Pedro[1]. El mural da nombre a la Stanza dell’incendio del Borgo («La sala del incendio del Borgo»).

Wikipedia

The Fire of the Borgo (Italian: L’Incendio di Borgo) is a fresco executed by the workshop of the artist Raphael Sanzio. Although it is assumed that Raphael made the drawings for the complex composition, the fresco was mostly the work of his assistant Giulio Romano. It was painted in 1514. It has a width at the base of 670 cm. It is the fresco that gives its name to the Sala dell’Incendio del Borgo (Stanza dell’incendio del Borgo), one of the rooms now known as Raphael’s rooms, located in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican and part of the Vatican Museums.

Fire in the borgo description

The fresco entitled The Fire in the Borgo, the episode that gives its name to the room, is from 1514: it tells how Leo IV miraculously extinguished a fire in the Roman quarter called Borgo. And you will notice that here Raphael’s style changes again: the figures are clearly inspired by classical art, and if you have read the Aeneid, you can’t help but think of Aeneas fleeing the fire of Troy carrying his father on his shoulders. The scene and the atmosphere may seem a bit rhetorical, but in return you will be fascinated by the crystalline sense of color and the refined representation of beauty, especially in the figures of the women trying to extinguish the fire.

Fire in the borgo

The drawing is rich in movement. In this painting and in the others in the Hall, a notable change in style can be perceived. From the harmonious beauty of the Hall of the Signatura, we move here to a less homogeneous style, a sign of Raphael’s encounter with Mannerism. In fact, in this Hall, Raphael painted little, limiting himself to the conceptual project and the execution of the cartoons and, in this work, the hand of Penni in the foreground and Giulio Romano in the background, both Mannerist painters, is mainly noticeable. Raphael and no one else has devised the scenographic approach of the fresco, with the inclined plane. In the first half of the 16th century, the theorization of theatrical scenography began, in fact, on the basis of Vitruvius’ work, and in 1540, Sebastiano Serlio published the first results in the Terzo Libro dell’Architettura. Mannerism will quickly apply these concepts to painting, moving away from the rigid Renaissance perspective. In this way, Raphael succeeds in fully presenting the drama of the historical event, even at the cost of distorting the truth…[1][2