After ten years of painstaking work, the Vatican Museums have unveiled the fully restored Raphael Rooms, revealing colors and details unseen for centuries. The restoration team, led by chief conservator Dr. Elena Marchetti, used cutting-edge multispectral imaging technology to map the original pigment layers before undertaking any intervention.
The project required the removal of centuries of overpaint, grime, and misguided earlier restorations. In several sections, the team discovered entirely new compositional details that had been hidden beneath later additions — including a sequence of faces in the School of Athens fresco that scholars believe may represent identifiable historical figures previously unknown to Raphael's iconographic program.
Art historians from around the world attended the unveiling ceremony and praised the quality of the work. The project was funded in part by donations from the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums, whose annual support has underwritten major conservation projects for over three decades.
What we see now is closer to what Raphael himself saw. The restoration has given these masterpieces back to the world.
The restored rooms will reopen to the public later this month. Museum officials expect record visitor numbers in the coming season, with timed entry tickets already sold out through the summer. A companion publication documenting the restoration process in full technical detail will be released by the Vatican Museums press.
A documentary film about the restoration is currently in post-production and is expected to air on a major streaming platform in the autumn. The Vatican has also announced a traveling exhibition of high-resolution reproductions and archival materials that will visit museums in Tokyo, New York, and London over the next two years.
