The paintings were meant to be unveiled on April 20th during an international conference to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Raphael's death. Due to the coronavirus emergency, the event was cancelled therefore we did not receive the chance to share this special and historical moment with our Patrons as we removed the canvases on Wednesday, May 13th, in the presence of the director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, and Patron of the Arts in the Vatican Museums Director Father Kevin. As we await to celebrate this magnificent restoration in person, we would like to share a video we produced that displays the exciting restoration discoveries dedicated to the Year of Raphael. 

In 2015, the fourth and largest of the Raphael Rooms, the Room of Constantine, underwent restoration. Our incredibly generous donors from New York, Eileen and Robert Carlson, left a sizable bequest to support the needs of the Vatican Museum. A portion of this bequest was allocated to fund the restoration of the Room of Constantine supervised by Fabio Piacentini. 

The Room of Constantine is constituted by four walls that are painted mainly by the workshop of Raphael. The walls represent four major events from Emperor Constantine’s life: the Vision of the Cross, the Battle of Ponte Milvio, the Baptism of Constantine and the Donation of Rome. Raphael started the  Room of Constantine in 1518/1519 and worked until his sudden death in 1520. His students and pupils finished the room without him and among those workers was the well-known painter Giulio Romano. These artists followed the indication of their late master with their own yet, never too different technique to create a powerful representation of the life events from the first Christian Emperor. 

The restoration of the Room of Constantine has resulted in exciting discoveries and discussions. A brand new technique to record the before and after of the restoration process was adopted. The Vatican Museums Scientific Restoration Laboratory, supervised by Professor Ulderico Santamaria, created a new photographic quilting technique. The entire wall is divided into one-meter squares and several photographs were taken in extremely high resolution (approx 1 GB). 

The restoration laboratory examined these images to observe the rendering of pigments and brushstrokes to record specific details. The small squares are then assembled together like a puzzle and a clear presentation of the entire fresco is revealed. These photographs are used by the laboratory to produce a comparative analysis that records the state of the project before and after the restoration. Additionally, this photographic technique helped confirm that two figures in the Room of Constantine were previously completed with a technique that is different from fresco.

Two allegorical females are located on two different walls in the Room of Constantine. On the east wall, the figure Comitas, the Latin name for the virtue of kindness and courtesy, stands to the right of the portrait of Pope Clement I (whose face represents the features of Pope Leo X) and wears a blue dress. On the south wall, to the left of the portrait of Pope Urban I,  is the figure Iustitia, the Latin name for the virtue of justice, and she stares at the scales in her hand. Iustitia is in better condition compared to Comitas as the latter was highly damaged possibly by a fire lit in the Room of Constantine by the troops of Charles V during the Sack of Rome. The two women are of higher quality in style and technique than the surrounding frescoes. These two distinctive figures were previously attributed to Raphael’s workshop however, the ongoing restoration provided additional information about the true identity of the artist. 

Confirmed under the scientific direction of Guido Cornini, along with the restoration findings from the efforts of Francesca Persegati and his composed team of experts coordinated by Fabio Piacentini, revealed that the two female figures - Iustitia and Comitas -  were brought to life by Raphael’s own hand. The restoration revealed that the women were indeed of higher quality and beneath the wall’s surface, numerous nails were discovered which anchored a layer of rosin, or Greek pitch, to the wall. Raphael spread the material on the wall while hot and then covered it with a thin layer of white plaster, to prepare for the application of the paint. Raphael's distinctive technique in the Room of Constantine acted as a foundation for his paintings that were part of an iconographic cycle dedicated to Constantine, and painted before his sudden death at the age of 37. Giulio Romano and Giovan Francesco Penni, most notably the master’s students and collaborators, completed the surrounding frescos.