A Guided Tour of Raphael’s “School of Athens”

The School of Athens is a fresco painted between 1509 and 1511 by the Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, commonly known in English as “Raphael.” It depicts a scene of famous philosophers and thinkers of the past from different time periods, all standing around conversing and debating with each other. It is located in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City and is widely considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. It has been the background image for this website since I first created it. Nonetheless, the fresco is filled with all sorts of fascinating symbolism and iconography that is often lost on the average viewer, so I thought I would take this article to give a quick guided tour of Raphael’s School of Athens.

Here is a photograph of the famous fresco:

First, let us examine the setting because there is a lot of symbolism built into the very structure of the building these people are gathered in. You will notice there are two large, classical statues in the background. This one on the right is of the Greek goddess Athena, the patron of the city of Athens, who was associated with wisdom and strategic war:

On the left is a statue of Apollo, a Greek god associated with music, poetry, oracles, and the truth:

Also, if we look at the shape of the entire building that all these great philosophers are gathered in from above, we will see that it is shaped like a mariner’s cross:

This may have been a deliberate decision by Raphael to show the harmony between Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine. It is also possible, though, that this is merely coincidence.

Now, let us examine the two central figures:

The man on the left with the long, white beard is the philosopher Plato (lived c. 427 – 347 BC) and the man on the right with the shorter brown beard is his student Aristotle (lived 384–322 BC). These two philosophers were regarded during the Renaissance as the two greatest philosophers of all time. That is why they are placed in the center of the scene. Raphael is essentially giving them the spotlight.

The model for Plato is believed to have been none other than the great Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (lived 1452 – 1519), due to his extremely close resemblance to Leonardo da Vinci’s presumed self-portrait, Drawing of a Man in Red Chalk from c. 1512:

You may notice Plato is shown holding a book. This is a copy of his Timaeus, which was regarded by medieval and Renaissance thinkers as his greatest masterpiece.

The model for Aristotle may have been the artist Giuliano da Sangallo (c. 1445 – 1516). Like Plato, Aristotle is holding a book. This is a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics, which was regarded as his greatest masterpiece.

Now, you may notice that Plato and Aristotle are making some pretty unusual gestures with their hands. These are believed to represent their respective answers to the philosophical question of “Where does true knowledge reside?” Plato is pointing upwards, towards the heavens, while Aristotle is motioning with his hand towards the earth.

Now let us move over to the left to examine this cluster of philosophers over to the side:

The balding man with the grey beard in the middle of this group, who is dressed in green, is obviously the Athenian philosopher Socrates (lived c. 470 – 399 BC), who is easily recognizable from his portrait busts:

Socrates appears to be teaching all those gathered around him, which is a very fitting portrayal, since Socrates taught a large number of philosophers who went on to become prominent in their own right. Let us examine the people who are listening to Socrates as he is lecturing. These obviously represent various students of Socrates:

The clean-shaven man with the curly blond hair standing directly to Socrates’s right (the viewer’s left) has been identified as Aischines of Sphettos (lived c. 425 – c. 350 BC), who, according to Plato, was present during the trial and execution of Socrates and who wrote numerous Socratic dialogues, none of which have survived.

The old, grouchy-looking man with the tall hat to Aischines’s right (the viewer’s left) is probably Antisthenes (lived c. 445 – c. 365 BC), a student of Socrates and the founder of the philosophical school of Cynicism. His dour expression is likely a reflection of Cynicism’s reputation for, well, cynicism.

The clean-shaven man with the long hair standing to Antisthenes’s right (the viewer’s left) and directly across from Socrates, dressed in armor and a plumed helmet, is most likely the Athenian general Alkibiades (lived c. 450–404 BC), who was a student of Socrates and who was known for his youthful beauty and for his ostentatious manner of dress.

You will notice that, behind Alkibiades is another man in armor, but this man has a beard and is dressed much less ostentatiously, indicating that he is older and more mature. This man is probably the historian Xenophon (lived c. 431 – 354 BC), who was a student of Socrates and whose writings are, alongside the dialogues of Plato, our main sources of historical information about Socrates. Xenophon is shown in armor because he was also a mercenary. (Xenophon’s Anabasis is an thrilling account of his adventures in the Persian Empire—a great book to read if you are interested in ancient history.)

Now let us move down to examine the group beneath the one we have just been examining in the bottom left corner of the fresco:

The cheerful-looking man in the top left, who is dressed in light blue, wearing a garland, and reading a book is most likely the philosopher Epikouros of Samos (lived 341–270 BC), the founder of the philosophical school of Epicureanism, which held that pleasure is the greatest good and that the goal in life in to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering.

To Epikouros’s left (the viewer’s right), we see an Arab-looking man with a moustache wearing a turban. This is most likely the Muslim Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd (lived 1126 – 1198), who is commonly known in English as “Averroes.” Ibn Rushd is the only figure in the entire fresco who is identifiably not Greek. It is difficult to say exactly why Raphael chose to put him in this painting.

The bearded, balding man in the center of the group, who is writing in a large tome, is without a doubt the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Pythagoras of Samos (lived c. 570 – c. 495 BC):

The long-haired young man beside him is clearly presenting him with a slate depicting a diagrammatic representation of a lyre, a kind of ancient Greek string musical instrument, with the tetraktys, an equilateral triangle composed of ten dots arranged in four rows, drawn below it. The lyre represents the fact that the Pythagoreans were known for their explorations of music theory and the tetraktys was a Pythagorean sacred symbol.

Near Pythagoras, we have these two figures:

The bearded man on the right holding the book is evidently a philosopher who was greatly influenced by Pythagoras, although it is difficult to identify which one. He may be either Parmenides of Elea (lived c. 515 – c. 430 BC) or the Neopythagorean philosopher Nikomachos of Gerasa (lived c. 60 – c. 120 AD).

The long-haired, beardless figure on the left is harder to identify. This figure has sometimes been incorrectly identified as the Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria (born c. 350–370; died 415 AD), but is probably actually a young man, since young men during Raphael’s time usually went clean-shaven and wore their hair long, which makes them sometimes look like women to modern viewers. If this were a woman, she would be the only woman in the fresco.

Then we have this guy, all alone, wearing boots and staring down at his boots in quiet contemplation:

This man is probably Herakleitos of Ephesos (lived c. 535 – c. 475 BC), who was known as “Herakleitos the Obscure” or “The Weeping Philosopher,” which explains his solitude and his solemn expression.

By the way, it has been speculated that the model for Herakleitos may have been none other than the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo (lived 1475 – 1564):

Then we have another philosopher who is sprawled out alone across the steps near the center of the painting, just below and slightly to the right of Plato and Aristotle:

This man is almost certainly the Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (lived c. 412 – c. 323 BC), who was notorious for living in the streets. According to the third-century AD Greek biographer Diogenes Laërtios, among Diogenes’s only possessions were his cloak and a wooden bowl. These are exactly the two objects we see next to him here in the painting.

Now let us examine this other group of philosophers over to the right:

In the center of this scene, we can observe a balding, gray-haired man dressed in red, bending over a slate on which he has written a mathematical diagram. This man is self-evidently a mathematician. He cannot be Pythagoras because we have already identified the man with the drawing of the lyre and tetraktys on the other side of the painting as Pythagoras, so he must be either Eukleides of Alexandria (lived mid fourth century BC to mid third century BC) or Archimedes of Syracuse (lived c. 287 – c. 212 BC).

The model for Eukleides/Archimedes appears to have been the Italian architect Donato Bramante (lived 1444 – 1514):

The people surrounding him are evidently his students, although it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify them by name. It is important to note that all of the student here are portrayed as beardless and long-haired to show that they are young men, since, as I have noted above, young men in Raphael’s time wore their hair long and went clean-shaven.

Then, once we get all the way into the corner here, we find some very fascinating and strange characters:

The bearded man directly behind Eukleides/Archimedes who is holding the sphere with the stars and constellations on it is almost certainly Zoroaster, the semi-legendary founder of the religion of Zoroastrianism, who was revered during the Renaissance as the founder of the science of astronomy as well.

The man with his back turned to us, who is wearing a crown and a gold cape and is holding a globe, is certainly the Alexandrian astronomer and geographer Klaudios Ptolemaios (lived c. 100 – c.  170 AD), who wrote the eight-volume book Geographika, which was revered as the greatest geographic treatise of all time during the Renaissance. Klaudios Ptolemaios is easily identifiable by his crown, a standard aspect of his iconography throughout medieval and Renaissance depictions, and his globe, representing his role as a geographer.

We know exactly who this guy is too:

This young, long-haired, beardless man is evidently supposed to represent the fourth-century BC Greek painter Apelles of Kos, who was renowned as the greatest painter of all time. Guess who the model for Apelles was. It was none other than Raphael himself, the painter of The School of Athens! Raphael put himself in his own painting, disguised as the greatest painter of all time!

Here is another portrait of Raphael, so you can compare him to the figure in the corner in the painting:

Then the slightly older, but still beardless man to Apelles’s left (the viewer’s right) is the fourth-century BC Greek painter Protogenes of Kaunos, the rival of Apelles. The model for Protogenes was one of Raphael’s own rival painters, possibly Il Sodoma (lived 1477 – 1549). Here is a self-portrait of Il Sodoma, so you can compare him to the figure of Protogenes in the School of Athens:

We have only identified about half the figures in the fresco. Unfortunately many of the figures simply cannot be identified because the iconography is too ambiguous or too variable.

In any case, as I have shown, there are lots of things about this painting that the average viewer is not aware of and that require a little research to know about and there are tons of amazing Easter eggs that you can find hidden in it.