10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Vatican unveils last of restored Raphael Rooms after 10-year cleaning that yielded new discoveries
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican Museums on Thursday unveiled the last and most important of the restored Raphael Rooms , the spectacularly frescoed reception rooms of the Apostolic Palace that in some ways rival the Sistine Chapel as the peak of high Renaissance artistry.
A decade-long project to clean and restore the largest of the four Raphael Rooms uncovered a novel mural painting technique that the superstar Renaissance painter and architect began but never completed: the use of oil paint directly on the wall, and a grid of nails embedded in the walls to hold in place the resin surface onto which he painted.
