The School of Athens is part of a cycle of four large frescoes painted by Raphael at the request of Pope Julius II in the Pope’s private study (which later became an ecclesiastical court around 1540). The frescoes were intended to represent the four spheres of knowledge: Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence, according to the classifications of knowledge of the time, corresponding to the fundamental fields of humanist culture. Scholarly studies agree that the work represents the soul’s capacity to know the truth through science and philosophy, celebrating the Renaissance ideal of humanity mastering reality through rational inquiry.
Within a grand Renaissance architectural setting, inspired by Bramante’s design for the renovation of the early Christian Basilica of Saint Peter, one can count fifty-eight of the most famous philosophers and mathematicians of Antiquity engaged in discussion; everything is rendered in perfect perspective, and the figures are arranged like the pages of an open book, with two distinct levels and a staircase that ideally divides the scene. Some of the philosophers are easily identifiable: at the centre stands Plato (portrayed with the features of Leonardo da Vinci), pointing upward with one finger and holding his book Timaeus, flanked by Aristotle with the Nicomachean Ethics; Pythagoras is depicted in the foreground explaining the diatessaron in a book; Diogenes lies on the steps with a bowl, while the pessimistic philosopher Heraclitus (bearing the features of Michelangelo) leans against a block of marble, writing on a sheet of paper. On the right appear Euclid teaching geometry to his pupils, Zoroaster holding the celestial globe, Ptolemy with the terrestrial globe, and, at the far right, the figure wearing a black cap is Raphael’s self-portrait. A mysterious figure dressed in white and possessing feminine features stands among the figures to the left of Plato and looks toward the viewer: according to some, this is Hypatia; according to others, the ephebe (a symbol of beauty); today, however, scholars tend to identify the figure as the personification of Truth.
The painting can be interpreted in many ways, as done by Raphael, it could be a grand representation of all the philosophy and as a tribute to the great philosophers present in the painting. It shows diversity of human cultures in such realistic perfection of perspective that it gives a thriving chaos in the whole painting. It gives a lively taste of how knowledge must respresent a lively and beautiful chaos in the world.
