The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple

Pope Julius II, identifiable by his white beard and red camauro, sits stoically on a portable throne while being carried by attendants into a biblical scene. The bearers are dressed in contemporary sixteenth-century attire, and a crowd of women and children huddled in the background reacts to a divine intervention occurring outside this specific frame. The painting creates a deliberate bridge between the biblical past and the political reality of the Renaissance papacy.

The mural program for the Stanza di Eliodoro was heavily influenced by the Neoplatonist and Christian Kabbalist Giles of Viterbo, a close advisor to Pope Julius II. It reflects the philosophical concept of the 'Providence of God' protecting the Church, a central theme in Giles's orations and his later work, the Scechina.