Residenza Raffaello

The Residenza Raffaello is inspired by the famous painting by Raphael, "The Madonna of Foligno" (1511). The painting was commissioned by Sigismondo de 'Conti, secretary of Pope Julius II, as an ex voto for the miracle that he had seen his house in Foligno illesa come out after being struck by lightning.

The altarpiece was in the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, the burial place of Sigismondo, from where in 1565 a nun of the donor's nephew had it transferred to the church of Sant'Anna in Foligno, near the Monastery of the Countesses of Beata Angelina dei Counts of Marsciano. It was raked during the French occupation in 1797 and brought to Paris. There the work was carried on canvas, around 1800-1801, by Francois Toussaint Hacquin, the same who treated the Virgin of the Rocks in the same way. Later he returned to Italy (1816), but Pope Pio VII, as for other important works of sacred art that today boasts of the Vatican Pinacoteca, decided to keep it in Rome.