They were created around 1480, when the influential, rich and aspiring to the rank of one of the leading patrons of art, papal nepot Giuliano della Rovere (the later Pope Julius II) decided – in connection with the restoration of the Church of Santi XII Apostoli – to fund new decorations in the part of the apse. Works on these were entrusted by him to Melozzo da Forlì – an artist, who became known for his outstanding decorations of the Vatican Library, created a few years earlier at the initiative of Pope Sixtus IV. The topic of choice for the apse, was the Ascension of Christ, accompanied by regiments of cherubs and singing angels, which is observed by the surprised Mary and the apostles looking up towards the sky. Ideal in their subtle beauty, blond-haired angels, in finely draped robes, float towards the heavens, while there standing on a cloud with his arms outstretched, with a heavily deformed figure due to a perspective foreshortening, pictured in the foreground of throngs of cherubs Christ, seems to be floating in the direction of the dome. The light descending from above filled this scene with a divine glow, while the expression of the whole was in a decisive way influenced by delicate colors, plasticity of figures, perfect drawing, but most of all using an unknown up to then perspective, providing the viewer with a feeling of boundless space stretching out above his head. All this had to make an unforgettable impression. There was no religious work in Rome which would with such intensity speak with its temporal beauty. For men of the Renaissance period it was a reflection of divine beauty, ideal and pure. This is a spellbinding world, almost out of a fable, far removed from suffering and fear. Christ floating up into the heavens, to the sounds of music, is reminiscent of an ancient hero dressed in a toga, who undergoes deification. Angels with individual visages and curly hair (sometimes with a fringe, sometimes parted) look like courtly musicians, who were willingly welcomed at courts and who with the use of typical for the time period instruments with their playing, singing and dancing brought liveliness to banquets of those times. And that is perhaps why people living in the following time period, dominated by the   orthodoxy of Counterreformation and discarding such a storybook vision of the Ascension, without feeling too much grief allowed for the frescoes to be destroyed. At the start of the XVIII century, when modernization of the church was undertaken, these paintings were replaced by others. Fortunately sixteen elements were taken down and secured and today they can be admired in several locations.

The largest collection – four heads of the apostles, eight figures of angels with instruments and two fragments depicting groups of angels – is found in the aforementioned   Vatican Museums. The figure of Christ is visible at the enterance to Palazzo del Quirinale in a rather unusual place, since it is the staircase, one of the angels can be found in the Madrid Prado Museum.

Remains of da Forlì’s frescoes are a work significant to Roman art and based on this work other great frescoes of that time should be evaluated – only a few years later decorations to the Carafa Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva would be created and the paintings on the vault of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. Only by imagining the greatness of Melozzo da Forli’s work, can we come to understand what a great inspiration it had to be for following generations of artists. Painting which we are wont to call illusionist, and which originates here, will by no accident culminate in the famous works of Baciccio and Andrea Pozzo, who decorated other Roman churches of the Baroque period.

Fragments of the apse decorations of the Church of Santi XII Apostoli, frescoes on canvas, Melozzo da  Forlì, approx. 1480, Musei Vaticani, Palazzo del Quirinale