Il sacrificio di Isacco

By 1511 Raphael was still in his twenties and already running the decoration of the pope's private apartments, a short walk from where Michelangelo was lying on his back finishing the Sistine ceiling. This small scene belongs to the vault of the second room, the Stanza di Eliodoro, painted for Julius II. It shows the oldest of hard stories from Genesis: Abraham told by God to kill his own son Isaac, and the angel catching his arm at the last moment. Raphael set it high overhead among three other moments when God stepped into human affairs, all chosen to say that heaven guards those it favours. You look up to find the knife already raised.