# Leo X commissions Raphael cartoons for Sistine Chapel tapestries, a costly textile propaganda set

Date: 1515

## The fact

In 1515 Leo X commissioned [Raphael](/people/raphael) to design Acts of the Apostles cartoons, woven in Brussels at enormous cost relative to ordinary Roman wages. The cartoons now at the V&A are the surviving design objects.

## Context

A pope spent a fortune on silk-gold narrative while the same court sold offices. The cartoons are also a later public-education holding in London — split that access.

Raphael is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Museum or basilica pages and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: V&A — Raphael Cartoons (https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/raphael-cartoons; Victoria and Albert Museum).

## Significance

A luxury tapestry programme is an inequality path. High confidence on the commission.

A luxury tapestry programme is an inequality path. High confidence on the commission.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [income-inequality](/drivers/income-inequality). The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here. Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is income-inequality. The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Raphael: https://factrail.ai/people/raphael

## Drivers

- Income Inequality: https://factrail.ai/drivers/income-inequality

## Sources

- https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/raphael-cartoons
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-X

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ra-tapestry-cartoons-1515