The Borgia Apartments are not just a footnote in papal history, but an opulent group of six rooms located in the Borgia Tower inside the Vatican.
Sealed off after the death of Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, (1431-1503) by Pope Pius III due to its association with the despised Borgia family; the art itself cannot be denied; the vivid colors of red and blue tempt the fingertips to touch, the scenery overwhelms the senses, all colliding in the mind of the admirer.
Depictions of the Sibyls, early Saints, the Resurrection and the Magi fill the vaulted walls, the detail exquisite. The arched ceilings are intricately painted and the floors once covered with rare Moorish tiles, a few pieces still evident. Chambers that oversaw plans of war, marriages of dynasties, and even murder may be empty of furnishings, but the remaining art portrays the opulence and power of the time. These six rooms lay hidden in the Vatican for three hundred years preserving frescoes created at the command of Alexander VI for the private apartments of the Borgia pope.
In 1492 Pinturicchio was employed by Pope Alexander VI to decorate a recently completed suite of rooms in the Vatican. The rooms are now part of the Vatican library and five of the suites retain a series of frescoes.
The upper part of the walls and vaults were not only painted, but further enriched with delicate stucco work in relief, and are a masterpiece of design. The paintings used themes from medieval encyclopedias adding an eschatological layer of meaning and celebrating the supposedly divine origins of the Borgias.
Pinturicchio worked in these rooms with an army of apprentices without interruption until 1498. No contract is in evidence, the only record of his work is the payment; another line entered in the Vatican account books.
The private living rooms of the Pope at that time were the Hall of Mysteries, the Hall of the Saints and the Hall of the Liberal Arts, besides the two withdrawing rooms.
Imagination furnishes the empty chambers with all the choice objects they once contained.The priceless majolica, the gold and silver vessels, the brocaded hangings, the ivory carvings – an ideal background for the scenes of love and revelry once lived here. The strum of music, the laughter and wit, boisterous merriment, muted conferences, the whispered plotting, the ghastly treacheries, the dying groans. In the Hall of the Sibyls, the second husband of Lucrezia, Alfonso of Aragon, was murdered. In the adjoining suite, the Pope himself died in agony. What other deeds of darkness, despair and triumphant villainy have these chaste and innocent conceptions of Pintoricchio looked down upon? Fascinations of fleurs du mal.
In 1889 Pope Leo XII reopened the rooms for restoration. Most of the rooms were in use for the Vatican Collection of Modern Religious Art, inaugurated by Pope Paul VI in 1973.
The 500th anniversary of Lucrezia (Lucretia) Borgia is June 29th. Sharing my Borgia posts this month to commemorate the event.
Cheers,
MJ
