The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament

This was the first of the great wall paintings Raphael made in these rooms, begun around 1509, and he built the whole wall around one small object. On an altar at the centre stands a gold monstrance holding the consecrated host, the round wafer of the Mass, and the lines of the composition lead to it. Above, the painting opens into heaven, with Christ between the Virgin and John the Baptist and a half-circle of saints and patriarchs seated on a bank of cloud. Below, on a marble floor, the doctors of the Church, popes, bishops and theologians gather around the altar, reading, pointing and arguing about the mystery in front of them.

Some of the faces in that crowd belonged to Raphael's own century and the one just before it. On the right, the old pope in gold vestments is usually identified as Sixtus IV, the uncle of Julius II and the pope who had built the Sistine Chapel a few rooms away. Behind him, crowned with laurel and dressed in red, stands the poet Dante. Further back, partly hidden, a man in a black hood is traditionally taken for Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican preacher burned in Florence in 1498. If the identification is right, he is a surprising guest in a pope's apartments. Far off on the left, away from the crowd, a church is still under construction, its walls rising out of the ground.