The School of Athens, Raphael, 1509-1510

Raphael (1483-1520) has long been considered one of the great masters of the Renaissance. The School of Athens is a fresco in the Stanze di Raffaello rooms in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. It has long been regarded as "Raphael‘s masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the High Renaissance". The four walls of the Stanze depict themes of knowledge. The figures exemplify Philosophy, Poetry, Law and Theology. The School of Athens is Philosophy, with the words overhead, "Causarum Cognito" echoing Aristotle‘s emphasis on knowledge. All the philosophers shown worked hard to understand knowledge and its causes. Almost every great Greek philosopher can be found in the fresco, but it is difficult to label all of them because Raphael made no explanations and used iconography to paint philosophers who had no traditional physical types. It is likely that the popular reading of the gestures of Aristotle and Plato are correct; one to heaven and the other down to earth, symbolising the great debate between Idealism versus Realism. The vanishing point of the architecture, in the centre of the fresco, holds the two main subjects, whose identity is undisputed. On the left, Plato holds his book Timaeus and to the right is his student Aristotle holding his own work Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle is shown at the peak of manhood; by contrast Plato appears old, wise and grey. The building which houses the philosophers is shaped like a Greek cross, thought to harmonize Christian theology with pagan philosophy. This masterpiece was painted by Raphael when he was only 27 years old, and little is known of how familiar he was with philosophy at that stage of his life. The fresco depicts a series of concentric circles, which begin from the vaults and centre above the two central figures heads. In the ancient world, the circle was a symbol of perfection and in this painting is thought to represent the mind of God and how that divine knowledge encompasses the minds of the philosophers.