The Baptism of Constantine

The baptism on this wall never took place. A legend that grew up in Rome in the fifth century told how Pope Sylvester cured the emperor Constantine of leprosy and baptised him at the Lateran. The historical Constantine put off baptism until he was dying, in 337, and received it near Nicomedia in Asia Minor from the local bishop Eusebius, a churchman close to the teaching of Arius that the Church later condemned.

For the popes, the legend was the version that counted. This wall was painted after work on the hall resumed under Clement VII, elected late in 1523, and Sylvester, pouring the water over the kneeling, half-naked emperor, has Clement's features. The building around them is modelled on the octagonal baptistery of the Lateran, which tradition said Constantine had founded. The Vatican gives the figures to Gianfrancesco Penni, and some of the portraits and the architecture to Giulio Romano.

One of the inscriptions painted on the wall records that Clement VII completed what Leo X had begun, and gives the year 1524.