Giotto, Cardinal Stefaneschi, and the immersive special effects of the late Middle Ages.

The Pinacoteca Vaticana, the picture gallery of the Vatican Museums, is a veritable chronological gallop through the history of (mostly) central Italian art. It’s also never busy, and has both air conditioning and seating, all highly prized attributes in one of the busiest museums in the world.

Cardinal Stefaneschi and his altarpiece within the altarpiece.

In the centre of Room 2 is the Stefaneschi Altarpiece. It was commissioned by Cardinal Jacopo Caetani degli Stefaneschi from Giotto for the extravagant sum of eight hundred florins, and in the seventeenth century part of the frame still bore the completion date of 1320.