The Curtain in Raphael's Sistine <i>Madonna</i>

Abstract

Among the many interpretations of the curtain in Raphael's painting, the one by Berliner is here supported with further evidence. The motif, which in medieval portraits of the Evangelists alluded to the curtain of the Temple, rent asunder at Christ's death, was a common symbol of the Incarnation in the medieval iconography of Mary. It was thus possible for Julius II, who ordered the painting, to refer through it to his honored uncle Sixtus IV, who had officially founded the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and to allude also to his own political triumph.