Raphael
One of his most important papal commissions was the Raphael Cartoons (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum), a series of 10 cartoons, of which seven survive, for tapestries with scenes of the lives of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, for the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons were sent to Brussels to be woven in the workshop of Pier van Aelst. It is possible that Raphael saw the finished series before his death—they were probably completed in 1520. He also designed and painted the "Loggie" at the Vatican, a long thin gallery then open to a courtyard on one side, decorated with Roman-style grottesche. He produced a number of significant altarpieces, including "The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia" and the "Sistine Madonna". His last work, on which he was working up to his death, was a large "Transfiguration", which together with "Il Spasimo" shows the direction his art was taking in his final years—more proto-Baroque than Mannerist.
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano was born in Rome; the "Romano" refers to this. As a young assistant in Raphael's studio, he worked on the frescos in the Vatican loggias to designs by Raphael and in Raphael's "Stanze" in the Vatican painted a group of figures in the "Fire in the Borgo" fresco. He also collaborated on the decoration of the ceiling of the Villa Farnesina. Increasingly he became the master's right-hand man, despite his relative youth. After the death of Raphael in 1520, he helped complete the Vatican frescoes of the life of Constantine as well as Raphael's "Coronation of the Virgin" and the "Transfiguration" in the Vatican. In Rome, Giulio decorated the Villa Madama for Cardinal Giuliano de' Medici, afterwards Clement VII. The crowded Giulio Romano frescoes lack the stately and serene simplicity of his master.