Audio Guide to the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican and its Remarkable Fresco Cycle.

If you appreciate art, architecture, culture and history, and you thirst for more and better information about what you see when you travel, Jane's Smart Art Guides are for you!

Raffaello Sanzio's frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, in Rome, are hardly more than fifty yards from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. These pictorial masterpieces are among the greatest achievements in the history of art, and together they established a standard of quality and invention that was to become the gauge of artistic achievement for the next four hundred years of European painting.

Now when you visit the Vatican Museums you can experience Raphael's ground-breaking fresco paintings guided by the scholarship of a well-known art historian. This guide is the exclusive audio adaptation of a popular book written by James Beck, Professor of Art History at Columbia University and a renowned Renaissance scholar.

In this engaging audio tour, Jane's narration reveals the historic context, the lofty humanist ideals, and the artistic genius that coincided to create Raphael's epic panoramic fresco paintings.

The vaulted structure of the ceiling was the first part of the Stanza della Segnatura to be painted, and the themes described on the ceiling -- the allegorical personifications of Justice, Theology, Poetry, and Philosophy -- introduce the themes of the panoramic frescoes on the walls below, one of which, The School of Athens, is considered to be one of Raphael's masterpieces. Part of the pleasure of looking at these frescoes, peopled as they are by contemporary and historical figures, is trying to determine who's who. In her narration, Jane returns to this question frequently.

- Background Context 'Slice of History' ... 30 minutes
- On-site Guide to Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura ... 60 minutes
- School of Athens Appendix ... 20 minutes

• Price: $ 8.95
• Duration: 110 minutes
• Publisher: Jane's Smart Art Guides
• Distance:
• Voice(s): M. Jane McIntosh
• Subject Type: Other
• Language: English
• Review score:

Preview • Download map • Open reviews