The Transfiguration

Raphael's last work splits into two worlds. Above, Christ floats in blinding light between the prophets Moses and Elijah, the three apostles flung down dazzled on the mountain (Matthew 17); below, in shadow and turmoil, the other apostles fail to heal a boy writhing in the grip of a demon, and a woman kneels pointing between the scenes (Mark 9). Divine radiance and human helplessness, joined by gesture. Left unfinished at his death in 1520 and completed by his pupils, it was hung above his bier. He painted it in open rivalry with Sebastiano del Piombo's Raising of Lazarus, also in this collection.