RAFFAELLO Sanzio
(b. 1483, Urbino, d. 1520, Roma)

Gregory IX Approving the Decretals (detail)

1511
Fresco
Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican

This scene is based on a dedication picture of the kind often found in manuscript illumination. What is unusual is that Pope Julius II allowed himself to be portrayed as Pope Gregory IX. His beard helps the dating of the fresco since it is known that after the autumn of 1511 he never shaved again. Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, later to be Leo X, is standing on the pope's far left.




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