The prototype for the Loggias that the architect Giacomo Quarenghi created for Catherine II in the 1780s was the celebrated gallery in the Vatican Palace in Rome that was frescoed from sketches by Raphael. The copies of the frescoes were made in the tempera technique by a group of artists led by Christoph Unterberger. The vaults of the gallery contain a cycle of paintings on subjects from the Holy Scriptures, that are collectively known as "Raphael's Bible". The walls are decorated with grotesque ornament, the motifs of which appeared in Raphael's painting under the influence of murals in the "grottos" - the ruins of the Golden House (the 1st-century palace of Emperor Nero).
