The Raphael Rooms, room by room, with the School of Athens

The Raphael Rooms are the part of the Museums most people hurry through, arriving after seven kilometres of galleries with the Sistine waiting just beyond. I think that’s a mistake, because they’re the Vatican’s other great painted ensemble, made in the very years Michelangelo was on the ceiling next door. Here’s what they are, where you’ll find them, what’s in each and how I’d split my time. The full museum route is in my Vatican Museums guide.

A papal flat turned into a gallery

Julius II della Rovere left the Borgia Apartment so as not to be reminded of his predecessor, and moved to an apartment on the second floor of the Papal Palace. Its four rooms are what we now call the Raphael Rooms. Raphael and his workshop painted them between 1508 and 1524, room by room and with three different popes footing the bill, Julius II first, then Leo X and finally Clement VII.

What I like about seeing them this way is that they’re a home, not a museum. One was a library and study, one an audience room, one a dining room and the last a ceremonial hall, and each pope had the story that suited him painted on his walls. The clearest proof is in the Fire in the Borgo room, where earlier popes called Leo all wear the face of Leo X.

Where are the Raphael Rooms on the route?

On the official Museums map they’re number 10. You reach them after the Gallery of the Candelabra, the Tapestries, the Gallery of Maps and the Room of the Immaculate Conception, and after them come the Borgia Apartment, home to the contemporary art collection, and then the Sistine Chapel. In other words, they’re the last big stop before the Sistine Chapel.

Two warnings you’ll rarely hear. Several unofficial guides say you walk through them today in the order Constantine, Heliodorus, Signatura and Fire in the Borgo, which isn’t the order they were painted, but the official map numbers them as a single block and doesn’t confirm it. The map also marks a short route to the Sistine without making clear whether it passes through them. If you don’t want to miss them, stick to the main route rather than the shortcut.

The Signatura and the School of Athens

This is the first room Raphael painted, between 1508 and 1511, his Vatican debut and the home of his most famous frescoes. Julius II wanted it as his library and private study, not to be confused with the Vatican Library, and the scheme revolves around Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Revealed truth is the Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, rational truth the School of Athens, goodness the Virtues and the Law, and beauty the Parnassus.

The School of Athens gathers the ancient philosophers beneath architecture inspired by Bramante’s design for the new St Peter’s. At the centre stand Plato, pointing upwards with the Timaeus in his hand, and Aristotle holding the Ethics. Around them, according to the official description, are Pythagoras explaining the diatessaron, Diogenes sprawled on the steps, Euclid teaching geometry, Zoroaster and Ptolemy with their spheres, Heraclitus with Michelangelo’s features and, at the far right, Raphael himself in a black cap. Plato having Leonardo’s face gets repeated by plenty of guides, but the official description doesn’t say it and I wouldn’t claim it.

Opposite is the Disputation, which the Museums say should really be called the Triumph of Religion, with the Church Triumphant in a semicircle on the clouds and below it the four Latin Fathers of the Church. In the Parnassus, Apollo plays among the nine Muses and poets such as blind Homer, Virgil, Dante and Sappho, whose name is written on the sheet she holds.

Heliodorus, the room where Raphael paints light

Between 1511 and 1514 Raphael decorated the Pope’s private audience room. Its theme is God’s miraculous protection of the Church, very much in tune with a Julius II bent on winning back temporal power, and the frescoes are the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, the Mass at Bolsena, the Meeting of Leo the Great and Attila and the Liberation of St Peter.

Of the four, the last is my pick. The angel leads Peter out of prison while the guards sleep, a nod to Julius II, who had been cardinal of San Pietro in Vincoli before becoming pope. The official site praises its light, the angel’s radiance, the dawn, the moon, the torches and the reflections on the armour. The room had earlier decoration too, and fragments attributable to Signorelli, Bramantino, Lotto and Cesare da Sesto survive.

The Fire in the Borgo, the workshop’s room

The ceiling predates Raphael, painted by Perugino in 1508, while Leo X commissioned the walls between 1514 and 1517. Raphael accepted the job and left much of it to his workshop, and it shows. Still, the title fresco carries a lot of history. It depicts the Borgo fire of 847 which, according to the Liber Pontificalis, Leo IV put out with a blessing from the Loggia of Blessings, and it’s a neat bridge into the history of Vatican City, since the same pope built the walls that enclosed this area.

Constantine, the room Raphael never saw finished

Raphael died on 6 April 1520 with this room still to do. His pupils completed it from the master’s drawings under Leo X and Clement VII, with the workshop of Giulio Romano and Giovan Francesco Penni in charge. It tells four episodes from Constantine’s life, the Vision of the Cross, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, the Baptism and the Donation of Rome. The ceiling you see isn’t Raphael’s either, it was painted by Tommaso Laureti in the late 16th century.

What I like most here is recent. The restoration began in March 2015 and ended in December 2024, and when the Museums presented it in February 2025 they confirmed that Raphael personally painted two figures in oil straight onto the wall, Comitas and Iustitia, an experimental technique. They’re probably the last things of his you’ll see in the Vatican.

How I’d split the time

There’s no official duration, and I’d give the four rooms about 35 minutes, just before the Sistine, which is how they fit into my one-day Vatican itinerary. Half would go to the Signatura, as it’s the room where everything is Raphael’s and the easiest to follow without a guide. In the other three I’d focus on one fresco each. Photos for personal use are allowed here, without flash, tripod or selfie stick, so make the most of it, because they stop at the Sistine.

Entry is the general Museums ticket, €20 at the desk or €25 online with a time slot, which you can compare in Vatican City tickets. I’d go for a morning slot. Rooms start clearing half an hour before closing, and if you reach Raphael late you’ll reach the Sistine Chapel ceiling even later, painted at the same time a few metres away.