The Coronation of Charlemagne

In September 1515 the young King Francis I of France defeated the Swiss at Marignano and took Milan. That December he met Pope Leo X in Bologna, and out of their talks came the Concordat of Bologna, agreed in 1516. Among other things it gave the French king the right to name the bishops and abbots of his kingdom.

This fresco, painted in 1516 and 1517, dresses that new understanding in the costume of the year 800. On Christmas Day in Old Saint Peter's, Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne emperor. The pope has the face of Leo X, and Charlemagne, receiving the crown, is a portrait of Francis I. Along the front, rows of bishops in their mitres fill the benches. Raphael designed the scene, but the painting was largely done by his workshop, most likely by his assistant Gianfrancesco Penni.

According to the biographer Giorgio Vasari, the small page carrying the royal crown is the young Ippolito de' Medici, the pope's nephew, then about five years old.