The Borgia Apartment, the rooms Julius II couldn't bear to live in

The Borgia Apartment is one of the Vatican Museums stops that most people cross without looking, because it’s on the way to the Sistine Chapel and everyone’s in a hurry. I think that’s a mistake. These are the rooms of a Spanish pope with a terrible reputation, painted in record time by one of the best painters of his day, and they tell a great story about papal grudges. Here’s what’s in each room and how to see them without losing your place for the Sistine.

The Spanish pope and his rooms

Rodrigo de Borja, Borgia in Italian, was elected pope on the death of Innocent VIII and took the name Alexander VI. His pontificate, 1492 to 1503, coincided with the arrival in the Americas and the great jubilee of 1500. He lived on the first level of the Apostolic Palace and had six monumental rooms remodelled and decorated, the ones that now carry his surname.

They aren’t all in the same building. The Halls of the Sibyls and of the Creed are in the Borgia Tower. The Halls of the Liberal Arts, the Saints and the Mysteries are in the wing built by Nicholas V, and the diary of Johannes Burckhardt, the pope’s master of ceremonies, calls them ‘camere segrete’, as they were for his private use. The Hall of the Popes is in the oldest wing, Nicholas III’s, from the 13th century. Other rooms of that residence stay closed, namely the Room of the Vestments, the Galleriola, the Room of the Falda and Nicholas V’s cubicle.

Who painted the Borgia Apartment?

Bernardino di Betto, whom everyone called Pinturicchio, ‘the little painter’, because of his size. He signed that way himself. He started out at the Vatican in Perugino’s team, when the Sistine walls were being painted (see who painted the Sistine Chapel), and ended up serving five successive popes.

What strikes me most is the speed. The decoration went up between autumn 1492 and early 1494, little more than a year. The Museums give two reasons. A well-run team, with Piermatteo d’Amelia, Benedetto Bonfigli, Pietro d’Andrea and Antonio da Viterbo, and a quick technique. Pinturicchio painted mostly on dry plaster, over a layer of gypsum and glue, and only partly in true fresco, which gave him more pigments and a finish almost like a panel painting. On top came gilded stucco and raised decoration everywhere. The theologian Annio da Viterbo may have devised the scheme.

Julius II couldn’t stand it

This is the story I like best. When Alexander VI died, his near-immediate successor, Julius II, abandoned the apartment. According to the Museums, he didn’t want a constant reminder of his hated predecessor, so he moved upstairs, to the rooms Raphael later painted. In other words, the Raphael Rooms exist partly because of a grudge.

The apartment then had several lives. ‘Cardinal nephews’ such as St Charles Borromeo lived there, it became Pius VII’s picture gallery in 1816 and Cardinal Mai’s library, and only in the late 19th century did Leo XIII open it to the public after a thorough restoration.

The 20th century under a 15th-century ceiling

Since 1973 these rooms have displayed part of the Vatican modern art collection, which is why 20th-century pieces hang beneath Pinturicchio’s lunettes. Some visitors find it jarring. I find it one of the most interesting things in the Museums, because it makes you look at two eras on the same wall.

What’s special about Pinturicchio’s technique?

He was after the effect of a panel painting on a wall. Working on dry plaster let him use pigments and lakes true fresco won’t take, and he then added stucco and raised gilded detail, so these walls shine quite differently from the Raphael Rooms just above. My tip is to see the two back to back. Upstairs, Raphael’s clarity. Downstairs, Pinturicchio’s almost goldsmith-like luxury. Two opposite ideas of the same palace, only a few years apart.

Fitting it into your visit

It costs nothing extra, as it sits on the ordinary Vatican Museums route. I’d give it ten minutes and stop above all in the Hall of the Saints. In the first slot, 08:00, you’ll have it almost to yourself. And if you’re curious what else of the palace you can and can’t see, I’ve gathered it on the page about the Apostolic Palace.