A 500 year old mystery at the Vatican has just been solved. The Renaissance painter Raphael, who painted these famous frescoes in three rooms at the Vatican, began work on another room before his death. But those paintings had never been found, until now.
So coming from the... three rooms that Raphael painted were now in the Hall of Constantine. This room was used for lavish banquets by Renaissance popes.
And right now they're cleaning and restoring its frescoed walls. And they've made a once in a lifetime discovery. Two paintings by the master Raphael, depicting the female figures, justice and friendship.
Raphael planned to paint the whole wall in oil, instead of the traditional fresco technique, but died before he could finish. and the figures were lost amidst the frescoed paintings done after him. One of the Vatican's chief restorers, Fabio Piacentini, explains the thrill of their rediscovery.
It's an amazing feeling. Knowing these were probably the last things he painted, you almost feel the real presence of the maestro. A first clue to the existence of these paintings is found in this book from the 15th century.
written by the historian Vasari, who said that Raphael had begun to paint two figures in a new experiment with oil. But for centuries they remained unidentified in the Vatican, until they began cleaning these walls. To the expert eye, it was clear that these two figures were not like the others.
The way the paintbrush moves, even the subtlety of the point of... the brushes used to create the small wisps of air. He says that clues that this is a genuine Raphael are seen in the confidence of the brushwork, the unusual shades of color, and the fact that there is no sign on these two figures of a preparatory drawing underneath. This infrared photo confirmed to the restorers that these two figures were not like the rest. The oil paintings clearly showing through in this advanced technology.
For the head of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Iatta, the discovery is a major one. Restoring the Raphaels in the whole room will take them until at least the year 2022. She's probably one of the most important projects never done in the last decades, apart from the Sistine Chapel, done in the Vatican Museums. With so much history and artwork here, could there be yet other major discoveries?
This is the beautiful thing of projects, of different projects. So we are still working on that. We are still searching. I mean, research, that's the good point of the research.
It never ends. Delia Gallagher, CNN, Vatican City.