The Fire in the Borgo
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Fire in the Borgo is a painting by the workshop of the Italian renaissance artist Raphael. Though it is assumed that Raphael did make the designs for the complex composition, the fresco was most likely painted by his assistant Giulio Romano. The painting was part of Raphael's commission to decorate the rooms that are now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. It is located in the room that was named after it, the Stanza dell'incendio del Borgo ("The Room of the Fire in the Borgo").
The Fire in the Borgo shows an event that is documented in the Liber Pontificalis: a fire that broke out in the Borgo in Rome in 847 CE. According to legend, Pope Leo IV contained the fire with his benediction. The young man with an old man on his back in the foreground is an echo of the classical theme of Aeneas carrying his father Anchises from the fires of Troy; it is therefore an allusion to the traditional idea that Rome was the new Troy.
