Vatican Palace

Vatican Palace, papal residence in Vatican City north of St. Peter’s Basilica. A major site of tourism, the lavish building is home to a number of public chapels, notably the Sistine Chapel; the four Stanze di Raffaello (Raphael’s Rooms), with extensive frescoes by the artist and his successors; Vatican Museums and Galleries; and the Vatican Apostolic Library. In 2019 the Borgia Apartment was also opened to tourism. In addition to these public areas, the Vatican Palace houses a number of offices of the Holy See, private chapels and rooms, such as the Pauline Chapel and the Sala Regia, and the papal apartments themselves. The Vatican Palace has been the official residence of popes since the 17th century (the summer residence is Castel Gandolfo on Lake Albano, south of Rome). Upon his election Pope Francis declined to live in the Vatican Palace, opting instead for a two-room apartment in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, normally used by cardinal electors.

From the 4th century until the Avignon papacy (1309–77) the customary residence of the popes was at the Lateran Palace in southeast Rome. In the early 6th century Pope Symmachus built two episcopal residences in the Vatican, one on either side of the basilica, to be used for brief stays. Charlemagne built the Palatium Caroli to the north of St. Peter’s to house his subjects during their visits to Rome. Other buildings added by Popes Leo III and Eugenius III were modernized by Pope Innocent III, who gave them added protection when he built a second fortified wall within that built by Pope Leo IV. Pope Nicholas III began the first of the many buildings known today as papal palaces.

In the Renaissance Pope Nicholas V rebuilt the north and west walls of the palace of Nicholas III and founded the Vatican Apostolic Library, making use of such architects as Leon Battista Alberti and Bernardo Rossellino. He also commissioned Fra Angelico to paint the stories of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence in the Chapel of Nicholas V.

Under commission from Pope Sixtus IV, Giovanni dei Dolci built the Sistine Chapel, the papal chapel within the Vatican Palace. He also remodeled and decorated the Vatican Apostolic Library. Pope Alexander VI remodeled the Borgia Apartment and commissioned Bernardino di Betto (Pinturicchio) to decorate the massive rooms with frescoes. Under Pope Julius II, Donato Bramante designed the Belvedere Courtyard to house the pope’s collection of ancient statues and completed the north facade and two of the so-called loggias (to which Raphael added a third). Raphael was commissioned to decorate the rooms of the Segnatura and of Heliodorus as well as the loggia overlooking the Courtyard of the Maresciallo.

Built for Pope Paul III were the Sala Regia and the Pauline Chapel, both designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. The painters Giorgio Vasari, Taddeo Zucaro, and Daniele da Volterra decorated the Sala Regia. Michelangelo painted the martyrdom of St. Peter and the conversion of St. Paul in the Pauline Chapel (1542–50). The Casino of Pius IV was the work of Pirro Ligorio and Giovanni Salustio Peruzzi; today this building is the seat of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The three chapels of St. Stephen, St. Peter, and St. Michael, with paintings by Vasari and stuccoes by Guglielmo della Porta, and the chapel of the Swiss Guards, painted by Giulio Mazzoni and Daniele da Volterra, date from the time of Pope Pius V. Pope Gregory XIII (1572–85) was responsible for the wing closing the north side of the present Courtyard of San Damaso, containing rooms decorated by Antonio Tempestà and Mathys Bril, and for the Gallery of Maps, designed by Ottaviano Mascherino and featuring maps of the regions of Italy from designs by Ignazio Danti. The present apartments along the eastern side of the Courtyard of San Damaso were built in the time of Pope Sixtus V by Domenico Fontana, who also made a new wing for the Vatican Apostolic Library including the Sala Sistina, thereby cutting the Belvedere Courtyard in half.

In the Baroque period Pope Urban VIII built the Hall of the Countess Matilda, today called the Matilda Chapel, which was decorated by Pietro da Cortona. Under Pope Alexander VII Bernini built the Scala Regia. In the late 18th and 19th centuries many of the additions and alterations had to do with the development of the Vatican Museums and Galleries.