Fire in the Borgo

Raphael's Fire in the Borgo in the Vatican Stanze depicts a miraculous fire extinguished by Pope Leo IV making the sign of the cross (847 CE), but the real subject is a visual anthology of human response to catastrophe drawn from Aeneid Book 2, Genesis 19 (the flight from Sodom), and the tradition of divine intervention in human crisis. The foreground group of a young man carrying his aged father on his back while his wife and children flee is a direct quotation of Aeneas carrying Anchises from burning Troy - the classical hero's act of filial piety redeployed in the context of Lot's rescue from Sodom (Genesis 19:17) and the human need for providential guidance through disaster. The painting's integration of classical and biblical narrative exemplifies the syncretism of High Renaissance humanism.