Turner's first visit to Italy in 1819, though resulting in a few exquisite watercolours of Venice (see Nos.212 and 213) and a much larger number of fine sketches and watercolours in and around Rome and Naples (see Nos.219-35), seems to have had a detrimental effect on his painting of exhibitable oil paintings. This was the only work shown in 1820, in 1821 he showed nothing, in 1822 the small 'What you will!' (No.307), in 1823 the larger 'Bay of Baiz' (No.237), in 1824 nothing, and in 1825 only one oil and one watercolour; only in 1826 did he again begin to show more than one oil. The large pictures of these years are, however, major statements, and none more so than Rome from the Vatican', perhaps intended, as Ron Parkinson has suggested, as a tribute to Raphael on the three-hundredth anniversary of his death.

Although Raphael's mistress, La Fornarina, is present this is far more than just an anecdotal painting. As his first exhibit after visiting Italy and one of such large dimensions, one would expect this picture to sum up his reactions to both the country and all that it had meant in the history of art. However, as John Gage has shown (1969, pp.92-5), the painting is more specifically biographical, with Turner identifying himself with the universal artist of the Italian Renaissance. When visiting the Louvre in 1802 Turner had ignored Raphael but by 1820 there was a growing appreciation of Raphael as a colourist as well as a draftsman; Turner himself noted in the 'Route to Rome' sketchbook that the frescoes in the Villa Farnesina were ‘Exquisite colored' (T.B.CLXXI-14v). Raphael was also being increasingly appreciated as a painter of landscape, hence the inclusion of the surprisingly Claudian landscape in the foreground. John Gage suggests that Turner deliberately included inaccurate and anachronistic details to stress the autobiographical character of the picture. Raphael's great decorative schemes, painted in fresco direct on the wall, are represented by an easel painting on canvas of one of the Loggie subjects. Bernini's colonnades in front of St. Peter's, not built until the seventeenth century, are included to represent Turner's ambitions as an architect, fulfilled to some extent by his designs for his own gallery in Queen Ann Street, which he was re-building at this time, and his cottage near Twickenham. Sculpture is also included.

In the 'Tivoli and Rome' sketchbook of 1819 there are a number of sketches of the Loggie, including one general view as they appear in the finished picture as well as several detailed studies, two general composition sketches which were considerably modified, and a drawing of the distant snow-capped Apennines (T.B.CIXXIX- 13v (No.215), 14-21v, 25v and 26 (repr. Wilkinson 1974, p. 188), and 25 respectively). There is a finished drawing in pen and ink, finished in Chinese white, in the 'Rome: C[olour]’ sketchbook (T.B. CLXXXIX-41). A fascinating recent discovery among the unfinished oils in the Turner Bequest is that another large picture, equal in size to this one and to 'Richmond Hill', shows the Grand Canal, Venice, with the bridge of the Rialto arching across the foreground somewhat like the arch in 'Forum Romanum' but filling much more of the picture (Tate Gallery 5543). This seems to be an unfinished project for a Venetian counterpart to the Rome picture.

Although Finberg quotes two unfavourable reviews (1939, p.264) the reception of the picture was not entirely negative. Two unidentified cuttings at the Victoria and Albert Museum speak of ‘a grand view of Rome' and of its 'possessing all the magical effects, the clear and natural atmosphere, and the glorious lights which give such a beauty and a charm to all his compositions' (Vol.IV, p.1217, and Vol.IV, p.1178). The Repository of Art for June 1820 described it as ‘a strange, but wonderful picture', criticising 'the crossing and re-crossing of reflected lights about the gallery', the figures and ‘the perspective of the fore-ground', but praising the distance and the 'richness and splendour of the colouring'. The Annals of the Fine Arts said that ‘Turner has not gone back, he only stands where he did', praised the 'grandeur of conception', but attacked the 'excessive yellowness, which puts everything out of tune that hangs by it'.

This work is also available as a Polaroid.