By unravelling the mysteries of the turbaned Moor in Giorgione's famous renaissance work Three Philosophers, experts believe they can illuminate some of the questions surrounding Islamic philosophy and its perceptions in the European Renaissance. This free lecture is held in the Met's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.
The altarpiece illustrates two episodes narrated in succession in the Gospel according to Matthew: the Transfiguration above, with Christ in glory between the prophets Moses and Elijah, and below, in the foreground, the meeting of the Apostles with the obsessed youth who will be miraculously cured by Christ on his return from Mount Tabor.
As Raphael's last painting, it appears as the spiritual testament of the artist. The work is considered in his biography, written by the famous artist and biographer of the 16th century, Giorgio Vasari, as "the most famous, the most beautiful and most divine".
The 14 fragments with the Apostles and Angel musicians (these are also exhibited in room IV) together with the figure of Christ (in the Quirinal Palace) were all part of the old decoration of the apse of the Church of the SS Apostoli in Rome, illustrating the Ascension of Christ. The solemn, monumental figures, strongly foreshortened, testify to the full maturity of the great artist, a follower of Piero della Francesca, and his skill with perspective.
The Mass of Bolsena is located in the Room of Heliodorus. It depicts an episode that took place in 1263 in Bolsena, near Orvieto, during the Mass celebrated by a Bohemian priest.
At the moment of consecration the blood of Christ trickled from the host, staining the corporal and thus dismissing the doubts of the celebrant on transubstantiation (the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist). The miracle led to the establishment of the feast of Corpus Christ and the construction of the cathedral of Orvieto, to which the corporal was transferred. Julius II (pontiff from 1503 to 1513), witnessed the miracle, and is shown kneeling to the right of the altar.
