History best remembers Julius II as the “Warrior Pope.” His reign, from 1503 to 1513, was marred by spiritual and political unrest. The pontiff famously rode into battle with papal troops and faced down threats of schism from within the Vatican’s curia. Julius’s legendary terribilità, however, not only describes the pope’s militance, but also his literary and artistic patronage. His court hosted the peninsula’s great scholars, poets, and artists – among them, Michelangelo and Raphael, whose Vatican works are celebrated examples of Italian Renaissance art. When Raphael arrived in Rome in 1508, he began to paint the walls of the Bibliotheca Iulia, Julius II’s private library, with frescoes of the School of Athens (representing Philosophy), the Disputa (Theology), the Parnassus (Poetry), and the Jurisprudence (Law), showing authors and books that Julius read. Today called the Stanza della Segnatura, this room once was the real and symbolic center of the papal apartments. After centuries of conflict, renovation, and reuse, however, it is difficult to picture the Stanza as it originally was: a vibrant site where Raphael’s paintings framed Julius’s collected books, and conversations about pictures and texts flourished.