Detail of our reproduction of Raphael's The School of Athens
On a tour through the Vatican museums, you walk through what feels like a maze of masterpieces, viewing myriad paintings by many famous artists. This was my experience two years ago when I suddenly came into the Stanze della Segnatura (“Room of the Signatura”), one of the rooms containing the art of Raphael. Entering the room, you are confronted on the far wall by the masterwork, Disputation of the Eucharist. As you approach the work, a tickling on the back of your neck causes you to glance behind you. And then you gasp, for there is The School of Athens in all its iconic glory.
The School of Athens was the second work completed by Raphael in the commission of Pope Julius II. The Pope commissioned the young Raphael in either 1508 or 1509, possibly attempting to outshine the Borgia Apartment created under the watch of his predecessor.
The School of Athens is one of four walls each of which concentrates on a realm of knowledge: philosophy, poetry, theology and law. The School of Athens meant to symbolize philosophy, as evinced by the scroll that extols the viewer to “Causarum Cognito” – i.e. “Seek Knowledge through Causes.” Raphael never intended for the work to be called The School of Athens; the title is rather an acknowledgement of the wisdom brought to the world by the ancient Greek philosophers.
Interestingly, most of the philosophers portrayed were not contemporary with each other and the architecture is Roman, not Greek. Twenty-one figures of philosophy have been identified in the work. Two Greek gods are also depicted in the painting: a statue of Apollo and one of Athena. There are five hand-painted reproductions of the work in existence: in Victoria and Albert Museum in London; Old Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia; Konigsberg Cathedral in Kaliningrad, Russia; the Student Union at the University of North Carolina; and Brooks College at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
THE LIFE OF RAPHAEL:
Raphael was born in Urbino in 1483, the son of the local court painter. Though orphaned at an early age, Raphael showed promise as an artist as a teenager. By the time he was eighteen, Raphael is described as a master painter which meant that he was fully trained and no longer an apprentice. The next year he was painting in Siena and from 1504 onward was often in Florence. By 1509 Raphael arrived in Rome at the invitation of Julius II and began work on the decoration of the Stanzi de Raffaeli.
While Raphael and his workshop were working on the Stanzi commission, he also undertook portraits. He continued to paint oils and frescoes among which the most important were Triumph of Galatea, the Raphael cartoons, the loggia in the Vatican, and altarpieces including The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia and the Sistine Madonna. He was working on the large Transfiguration when he died in 1520 at the age of thirty-seven.
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Zylo
Dec 15th 2009, 4:31 pm
Very interesting read – I’m quite jealous you got to see this in person. I’d love to see a larger version of this, with each one of the 21 philosophers that have been identified marked.
Troy Caperton
Dec 15th 2009, 5:01 pm
Here are the identifies of the philosophers. In the middle under the central arch are Plato and Aristotle speaking to each other. Fourth figure to the viewer’s left of Plato is Socrates, speaking to Aeschines with Antisthenes listening in and Alcibiades in helmet and hand-on-hip listening as well. Along the bottom from the viewer’s left to right is firstly the bearded Zeno of Citium and then the wreathed Epicurus. Next to the viewer’s right is Federico of Mantua and then the sitting Boethius. Averroes leads over in his turban looking over the shoulder of Pythagoras. Next to the right is Hypatia, the female martyred pagan librarian of Alexandria, standing in white and then the yellow robed Parmenides. Heraclitus shits on the stairs in his purple coat and to the right of him sprawls Diogenes showing his chest and bald head. Moving to the bottom right of the scene Euclid leans over a tablet on the floor showing diagrams to students. Immediately behind him is Ptolemy the Cartographer who looks at Protogenes in white and Zoroaster with a dark brown cap and beard. The last philosopher of this list is the brown robed and white beared Plotinus who stands on a higher stair behind Zoroaster.