Coronavirus: Raphael exhibition in Rome closes three days after opening

Seventy-two hours after opening its doors in Rome at the Quirinal Stables, the event exhibition devoted to the genius of the Renaissance, Raphael is already closing its doors on Sundays. Like all Italian museums, the institution obeys the government decree providing for the closure of all museums in Italy until April 3 in an attempt to curb the epidemic of coronavirus. The exhibition is scheduled to end on June 2.

Despite the coronavirus epidemic which is hitting Italy hard with more than 7,000 cases and 366 deaths, more than 70,000 visitors had booked their tickets online to admire the works of Raphael.

Read also: Raphael: the homage of Rome to his divine artist

The Raphael exhibition is the fruit of three years of work which has brought together a hundred works of the "handsome Raphael", a famous prodigy from his youth, who died at only 37 years old, in 1520 in Rome. Famous for the perfection and the grace of his paintings, Raphaël forms with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci a sort of trinity of the great artists of the Renaissance.

In addition to the prestigious Florence Uffizi Museum which has lent a quarter of the works, the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London and Washington as well as the Prado Museum in Madrid have also allowed their paintings to travel. Among the painter's most famous works exhibited at the Quirinal Stables are the "Virgin with the Rose" and the portraits of Pope "Julius II" and of the writer and diplomat "Baldassare Castiglione".

The papal portrait of discord

But as with the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre, this Raphael event was not without controversy. At the center of this quarrel of experts, a splendid portrait of Pope Leo X kept in the Uffizi Museum in Florence. The scientific committee of the Florentine museum estimated that this "Portrait of Leon X with two cardinals" painted between 1518 and 1519, was too fragile to travel. And he resigned en bloc last week to protest the decision of the Director of Offices, the German Eike Schmidt, to override it to send it to Rome.

In a column published in the daily La Repubblica , the four members of the committee recalled that this painting, which caused a sensation in Raphael's time, is part of the list of 24 non-transportable works drawn up on December 9 by the Offices.

Following the decree of the Italian government, the Vatican Museums, a financial windfall for the Holy See with its more than 6 million visitors, have also followed the instructions of the Italian government and will remain closed until April 3. The major archaeological sites have also lowered the curtain in the country, like the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, or Pompeii in the Bay of Naples.

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