Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Sistine Tapestries

Woven into the fabric of the Church.
Imagine a first-time-ever, five-week museum exhibition with a subject as familiar as Raphael (1483-1520). That's what London's Victoria & Albert Museum is serving up, displaying four of the master's Sistine Chapel tapestries alongside the museum's own cartoons (i.e., immense drawings created as models) for those grand woven works. Even Raphael never got to see his paintings, depicting scenes from the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, next to the finished tapestries.

Commissioned by Lorenzo de'Medici's son, Pope Leo X , in 1515, the tapestries followed the earlier Sistine Chapel decorations, including Michelangelo's renowned ceiling frescoes, commissioned by Leo X's predecessor, Julius II. Seven of the woven works were unveiled in the Sistine Chapel with great ceremony in 1519, and due to the tapestries' fragility the Vatican's entire set of 10 is displayed only on special occasions.
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