Raphael and Antiquity
Ingrid Rowland | Perspectives | 16th June 2026
When Raphael arrived in 1508, Rome was a fraction of its former self, huddled among ancient ruins. Pope Julius had started restoring the city’s primacy and in Raphael he found the artist to express that ambition. But why Raphael? His aesthetic was elegant and humanist, not an obvious fit with Julius, a hot-tempered soldier-Pope. Yet Raphael offered art that recognised Rome’s ancient legacy and could articulate, through the graceful harmony of his images, that the inheritor of that legacy was the Pope.