Raphael: “School of Athens”.
Learn more about one of Raphael's greatest works.
"The School of Athens".
Created by Raphael in 1509 The School of Athens, or Scuola di Atene in Italian, may be the most famous fresco by the Italian renaissance artist Raphael. "The School of Athens" contains all of the world's greatest thinkers from Plato to even Raphael himself.
More about "The School of Athens".
"The School of Athens" represents all of the greatest mathematicians, philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers from classical antiquity gathered together sharing their ideas and learning from each other. Even though almost all of these people lived in separate time periods they are all gathered in the same building.
The Two in the Center
The two people in the very center of the fresco, Aristotle (on the right) and Plato (on the left), in different ways have been very very important to western thinking generally. Their different philosophies were embedded into Christianity. Plato is holding his book, The Timaeus.
Pythagoras
In the lower left, Pythagoras was an Ionian Greek Philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religuois movement called Pythagoreanism.
Ptolemy
With his back to us on the lower right, Ptolemy (holds a sphere of earth) was a Greco-Egyptian writer of Alexandria, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology.
Zoroaster
Zoroaster (holding a celestial sphere and standing beside Ptolemy) was an ancient Persian prophet who founded the first world religion - Zoroastrianism.