Unusually for a depiction of the Transfiguration of Jesus in Christian art, the subject is combined with the next episode from the Gospels (the healing of a possessed boy) in the lower part of the painting.

[3] He commissioned two paintings for the cathedral of Narbonne, The Transfiguration of Christ from Raphael and The Raising of Lazarus from Sebastiano del Piombo.

[4] From 11 to 12 December 1516, Michelangelo was in Rome to discuss with Pope Leo X and Cardinal Medici the facade of the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence.

[3] An early modello for the painting, done in Raphael's studio by Giulio Romano, depicted a 1:10 scale drawing for The Transfiguration.

[3] Raphael would have been familiar with the final form of The Raising of Lazarus as early as the autumn of 1518, and there is considerable evidence that he worked feverishly to compete, adding a second theme and nineteen figures.

[3] A surviving modello for the project, now in the Louvre (a workshop copy of a lost drawing by Raphael's assistant Gianfrancesco Penni) shows the dramatic change in the intended work.

In 1523,[5] he installed it on the high altar in the Blessed Amadeo's church of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome,[10] in a frame which was the work of Giovanni Barile (no longer in existence).

On 19 February 1799, Napoleon concluded the Treaty of Tolentino with Pope Pius VI, in which was formalized the confiscation of 100 artistic treasures from the Vatican.

The painting, along with the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoön, the Capitoline Brutus and many others, received a triumphal entry into Paris on 27 July 1798, the fourth anniversary of Maximilien de Robespierre's fall.

In 1810, a famous drawing by Benjamin Zix recorded the occasion of Napoleon and Marie Louise's wedding procession through the Grande Galerie, The Transfiguration on display in the background.

[13]: 1852  Farington himself expressed his sentiments as follows: Were I to decide by the effect it had upon me I should not hesitate to say that the patient care and solid manner in which The Transfiguration is painted made an impression on my mind that caused other pictures esteemed of the first Class, to appear weak, and as wanting in strength & vigour.After the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1815, envoys to Pope Pius VII, Antonio Canova and Marino Marini managed to secure The Transfiguration (along with 66 other pictures) as part of the Treaty of Paris.

[16] The first descriptions of the painting after Raphael's death in 1520 called The Transfiguration already a masterpiece, but this status evolved until the end of the 16th century.

In his notes of a travel to Rome in 1577, the Spanish humanist Pablo de Céspedes called it the most famous oil painting in the world for the first time.

In his opinion, its outline drawing, the effect of light, the colours and the arrangement of the figures made The Transfiguration the most perfect painting in the world.

[20] During the short period of time the painting spent in Paris, it became a major attraction to visitors, and this continued after its return to Rome, then placed in the Vatican museums.

In contrast, other paintings like the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci were much easier to recognise and did not suffer from the decline of the overwhelming status of Raphael as an artistic example.

While the original could only be admired in one place – in Rome, and for a short period of time in Paris after it had been taken away by Napoleon – the large number of reproductions ensured that the composition of the painting was omnipresent in nearly every important art collection in Europe.

[23] At least 52 engravings and etchings were produced after the painting until the end of the 19th century, including illustrations for books like biographies and even for Christian songbooks.

Large-format camera equipment (utilizing 20-by-24-inch negatives) and processing developed by the Polaroid Corporation made possible "photographic reproductions of unprecedented resolution and color fidelity.

The youth is no longer prostrate from his seizure but is standing on his feet, and his mouth is open, which signals the departure of the demonic spirit.

I like there to be someone in the "historia", who tells the spectators what is going on, and either beckons them with his hand to look, or with ferocious expression and forbidding glance challenges them not to come near, as if he wished their business to be secret, or points to some danger or remarkable thing in the picture, or by his gestures invites you to laugh or weep with them.Matthew (or Andrew) gestures to the viewer to wait, his gaze focused on a kneeling woman in the lower foreground.

[3] The apostle on the far left is widely considered to be Judas Iscariot[27] He was the subject of one of only six surviving so-called auxiliary cartoons, first described by Oskar Fischel in 1937.

[5] Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu noted that the healing of the obsessed boy in the foreground takes precedence over the figure of Christ.

At the conclusion of the version of his first lecture, delivered on 7 January 1811, as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, Turner demonstrated how the upper part of the composition is made up of intersecting triangles, forming a pyramid with Christ at the top.

[34] In a 1870 publication, German art historian Carl Justi observed that the painting depicts two subsequent episodes in the biblical narrative of Christ: after the transfiguration, Jesus encounters a man who begs mercy for his devil-possessed son.

This causal link is played on by the watery reflection of the moon in the lower left corner of the painting; the boy is literally moonstruck.

Raphael uses the cave to symbolize the Renaissance style, easily observed in the extended index finger as a reference to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.

In all, Raphael successfully appeased his commissioners, paid homage to his predecessors, and ushered in the subsequent predominance of Baroque painting.

The philosopher Nietzsche interpreted the painting in his book The Birth of Tragedy as an image of the interdependence of Apollonian and Dionysian principles.

Fragments of the Transfiguration appear on the cover of the Renaissance: Desire album mixed by Dave Seaman in 2001 and published by Ultra Records.