Raphael designed the tapestries displayed in the Sistine Chapel during the sixteenth century.
Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to create designs, known as cartoons, for a series of tapestries intended for the chapel. The finished tapestries were woven in Brussels, one of Europe’s leading centers of high-quality textile production. The designs depict scenes from the lives of Saints Peter and Paul, whose stories were central to the chapel’s religious program.
The cartoons were full-scale preparatory drawings rather than the woven tapestries themselves. Several survive, and most are held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The tapestries belong to the Vatican Museums and have been displayed in the Sistine Chapel on special occasions.
Raphael did not paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling or its major wall frescoes. His connection with the chapel comes through this tapestry commission and through his broader role as a leading contemporary of Michelangelo in Renaissance Rome.