El Juicio de Salomón

Raphael reached Rome in the second half of 1508, 25 years old, and was set to work in a room where several other painters were already busy. The room was Julius II's private library. Vasari wrote later that once the pope saw what the newcomer could do, he had the others' work taken down and gave Raphael the whole space. The ceiling was the part finished first, in 1508. This panel shows Solomon ordering a baby cut in half so that the true mother will give it up, and it sits directly beside the figure of Justice, above the wall where Gregory IX hands over the church's book of law and Justinian hands over Rome's. Julius's books are long gone from the room, which takes its name from the papal tribunal that met there later.