Raphael Rooms

Room of the Segnatura

Virtual Tour of this Room

The Room of the Segnatura contains Raphael's most famous frescoes. Besides being the first work executed by the great artist in the Vatican they mark the beginning of the high Renaissance. The room takes its name from the highest court of the Holy See, the "Segnatura Gratiae et Iustitiae", which was presided over by the pontiff and used to meet in this room around the middle of the 16th century. Originally the room was used by Julius II (pontiff from 1503 to 1513) as a library and private office. The iconographic programme of the frescoes, which were painted between 1508 and 1511, is related to this function.

Room of Constantine

Room of Heliodorus

Room of the Segnatura

Room of the Fire in the Borgo

The four rooms known as the Stanze of Raphael form part of the apartment situated on the second floor of the Pontifical Palace that was chosen by Julius II della Rovere, the Pope. as his own residence and used also by his successors. The picturesque decoration was carried out by Raphael and his pupils between 1508 and 1524.

The Raphael Rooms (also called the Raphael Stanze) in the Palace of the Vatican are papal apartments with frescoes painted by Italian artist Raphael.

The Rooms were originally intended as a suite of apartments for Pope Julius II. He commissioned the relatively young artist Raffaello Sanzio and his studio in 1508 or 1509 to repaint the existing interiors of the rooms entirely. It was possibly Julius' intent to outshine the apartments of his predecessor (and rival) Pope Alexander VI as the Raphael Rooms are directly above Alexander's Borgia Apartment.

The Rooms are on the third floor, overlooking the south side of the Belvedere Courtyard. Running from East to West, the rooms are called:

This picture by Raphael is very important to me, as you must be aware, by the opening at the very head of this blog, and by the picture I cut from Raphael's painting. It shows myself(Plato:) and Aristotle.

I mentioned that ">one thing" before remember. How this insighted Curly 's touching philosophy about that "one thing" and the search for Gold.

Well, such depictions taken I gathered from the painting, as well as, what I gathered from what I thought Raphael was saying. You noticed of course that they are all under this Arche? Yes, this was very symbolic to me.

So indeed, what is truth?

Justified true belief

The Theaetetus account of Plato further develops the definition of knowledge. We know that, for something to count as knowledge, it must be true, and be believed to be true. Plato argues that this is insufficient, and that in addition one must have a reason or justification for that belief.

Plato defined knowledge as justified true belief.

One implication of this definition is that one cannot be said to "know" something just because one believes it and that belief subsequently turns out to be true. An ill person with no medical training but a generally optimistic attitude might believe that she will recover from her illness quickly, but even if this belief turned out to be true, on the Theaetetus account the patient did not know that she would get well, because her belief lacked justification.

Knowledge, therefore, is distinguished from true belief by its justification, and much of epistemology is concerned with how true beliefs might be properly justified. This is sometimes referred to as the theory of justification.

Well to help direct the truth to bare on what these sources are, I thought it important to continue to bring perspective not only to the tidbits of images that are floating around this site, and those of others, but brings the significance of such "gatherings" to Raphael's painting and the place it rests.

So anyway, a little more clarity, with a "slight twist" of my humour.