Vatican Launches Five-Year Restoration of Raphael Loggias
The Vatican Museums has begun its most ambitious conservation campaign yet for the Raphael Loggias, the 65-meter corridor in the Apostolic Palace that holds one of the Renaissance’s most intricate fresco cycles. More than 20 specialists will work on the project, which is expected to take five years and includes the installation of new windows to stabilize the environment around the paintings.
The loggias, which are not part of the Vatican Museums’ regular public route, were decorated by Raphael and his workshop between 1517 and 1519 for Pope Leo X de’ Medici. The cycle comprises 50 scenes framed by ornamental panels and draws on ancient Roman mural painting. Museum officials say the work is intended not only to repair visible damage, but to secure the long-term survival of a decorative program that has remained relatively little known outside specialist circles.
Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, said the loggias embodied “a revival of the style and techniques of antiquity,” and noted that generations of clergymen, diplomats, Grand Tour travelers, and artists came there for inspiration. The corridor, divided into 13 bays on the second floor of the Apostolic Palace and overlooking a central courtyard, is crossed daily by Vatican officials. It can sometimes be visited on request.
Conservators have long struggled with the effects of earlier interventions. The space was first fitted with windows in 1813 and 1814 under the supervision of Antonio Canova, after originally being exposed to the elements. Over time, glue applied to secure flaking paint began to accelerate deterioration instead. Angela Cerreta, the Vatican Museums’ deputy head restorer for paintings and wooden materials, said those adhesives “shrink and peel off the paint,” adding that if they are not removed, they continue to strip color from the surface.
The current campaign builds on pilot projects carried out between 2019 and 2024, during which specialists tested the methods now being used across the cycle. Work is underway in four bays before expanding to the rest of the gallery. The first phase will consolidate unstable paint, then clean the frescoes with fiber lasers. Areas requiring retouching will be color-matched using techniques that allow viewers to distinguish restored passages from original ones.
Funding comes from several private sources. The restoration is supported by $5.5 million from the Legacy of Raphael: The Vatican and Beyond initiative, a World Monuments Fund project focused on restoration, training, digital documentation, and dissemination. That initiative was itself backed by a $14.3 million donation from the Stephen A. Schwarzman Foundation. Jatta said new windows were made possible by a gift from The Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums, which also financed the pilot projects.
For the Vatican, the project is as much about climate as it is about paint. Without stable conditions, Jatta said, the frescoes would continue to deteriorate even after treatment. The restoration now underway suggests a more cautious model of heritage care: one that treats conservation, environment, and funding as inseparable parts of the same task.
