Stop 202: Raphael Room 
I’m Christina Nielsen, Curator of the Collection. As we move into this room, it’s like we’re transported to an Italian noble home, in the period known as the High Renaissance. The first impression you might have is … the color red! It’s very red. The museum has just recently completed a total renovation of this room, and the objects in it—bringing it back to Isabella’s original, very bold, vision. 


Let’s start by moving towards the set of three pointed windows that look out into the courtyard. In front of them, there’s a large marble bowl, on a pedestal. Two animals are perched on it. This object encapsulates a theme of the room: which is the rediscovery of Roman and Greek antiquities in the Renaissance. The bowl itself is ancient Roman—but the animals aren’t. Look inside the bowl to see where Renaissance artisans cut out a piece of marble on each side to attach the 17th century animals. The bowl is the Renaissance imagining of antiquity; just like this room—and this building—are Isabella’s imagining of a Renaissance palace. 


Now, facing the windows to the courtyard, turn to your left. Move toward the large horizontal painting that’s just to the right of the doorway you’re facing now. It’s by the great Italian master, Sandro Botticelli—and it’s one of the most action-packed paintings in the museum. It depicts The Tragedy of Lucretia, which was a famous story in ancient Rome, that was popular in the Renaissance. In the section on the left you see the virtuous wife Lucretia, dressed in green. Her hands are up as she’s spurning the advances of the son of a Roman tyrant. He tells her that if she doesn’t sleep with him, he will kill her and her male servant—and leave their dead bodies together, as if they had been having an affair. She concedes to avoid the disgrace to her family. 


On the other side of the painting, to the far right, she’s drooping over, collapsed in grief, as she tells her family what happened. In the center of this almost stage-like space, we see her dead body, with the dagger from her suicide sticking out of it. According to the story, Lucretia’s death inspired the overthrow of the tyrannical ruler, and led to the founding of the Roman Republic. I feel as though I can almost hear those soldiers cries of grief as I look at their gestures. 


The format of the painting—and the subject matter of the virtuous woman—tell us that this painting was probably made for a Italian noblewoman’s bedroom. Isabella bought the painting at the same time as the wooden chest she placed beneath it. It’s a wedding chest. A bride would use it to bring her prized possessions to her new home. Peek inside…at that gorgeous 18th century Italian guitar. 


This guitar is too delicate to play, but, coincidentally, there’s another guitar by this same maker in the collection of the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts), Boston—and that one can be played. That’s the music you’ve been hearing in this room. Lovely, isn’t it? 


Now, let’s move along the same wall that Lucretia is on, to the left. At the other end of this wall, next to the window, there’s a man dressed in red. This is the painting Isabella named this room after—and a work that she really triumphed over being able to acquire. It was the first painting by the great Italian master of the High Renaissance—Raphael—to be brought to America. Quite a coup! It’s Raphael’s portrait of his friend, Count Tomasso Ighirami, who was known as a great orator and writer. He worked in the Vatican Library. Tomasso had one weak eye, and in this pose he's looking up, skyward, as though he's getting divine inspiration as he’s writing. The position somewhat masks his eye condition. 


Now, turn around. Let your eyes sweep around this room. It’s one of the clearest examples of how Isabella conceived of entire rooms as works of art. The textiles add a variety of sensual textures. Throughout the room, there are all sorts of thematic layers and visual conversations. Let me show you just one more. Go back towards the marble bowl with the animals on it. To the right of the bowl, just past the windows, there’s marble foot on top of a cabinet. And now look just to the right—facing the foot is painting of the Madonna and child. The infant Jesus gazes up at his mother as she… cradles his foot! It’s a usual gesture of motherly love which clearly resonated with Isabella. I think she placed the marble foot next to it so we’d notice it too.