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Raphael, School of Athens

Raphael's frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura showcase four branches of human knowledge: philosophy, theology, poetry, and justice. The School of Athens represents philosophy, featuring Plato, Aristotle, and other great thinkers. The Dispute symbolizes theology, depicting divine figures and religious leaders. These artworks celebrate human knowledge and its connection to the divine. Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker, Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

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  • primosaur sapling style avatar for user David Mayrose
    Who is the figure sprawled on the steps by himself in front of Aristotle and Plata, and what does he signify?
    (37 votes)
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  • leaf orange style avatar for user Fairgo
    I wish this video was longer, it would have been interesting for them to comment on all the characters in this painting. Also I was wondering does anyone know who's the person in the white robe (The one above Pythagoras and staring directly at the viewer)?
    (34 votes)
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    • starky ultimate style avatar for user Michael Orozco
      i was informed that the person you speak of is actually a female and that she was the love of Raphael. As you can see they are the only once who look directly at the viewer, sort of making like a 3-D triangle so in a way you are connecting them two. Raphael sort of separates each other because it was forbidden love because she was already married.
      (25 votes)
  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Rebecca
    I wish that they went over every person so that we could learn more about the people and get more out of it. But other than that I really liked it
    (8 votes)
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  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Bonnie McLeish
    At about a brief close-up was shown of the books that Plato and Aristotle were holding. I couldn't quite catch what the titles were, does anyone else know?
    (4 votes)
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  • female robot ada style avatar for user Ms Jennifer
    Like many others commenting below, I too wish this video had been longer, or broken into two separate parts. It seems a disservice to combine both the School of Athens and the Disputa into one very brief video, although we're grateful for the start.

    However, I would like Drs Zucker and Harris to engage in the debate as to the woman you can see in the white robe looking at us (-).

    Like most female philosophers and mathematicians, I prefer to think this is a representation of the great scientist Hypatia, and not merely a nod to one of Raphael's lovers. The positioning of this character is too important to lend credence to the Lover-theory.

    Furthermore, Hypatia met her death in no small part because she took on men in academia and the Church head-on, and as a result, she was subjected to horrific torture and mutilation by the Church fathers in the 3rd CE. Her courage to look us in the face as a brilliant woman seems more in keeping with the remainder of Raphael's characters.

    However, we'd be grateful if Drs Harris and Zucker could weigh in on this debate?
    (6 votes)
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  • leaf green style avatar for user John
    I've heard that the image of Plato is actually a portrait of Leonardo, and Euclid is a portrait of Raphael's friend Bramante. With so many of this cast being portraits of Renaissance superstars, do we know is Aristotle was a portrait? How about Pythagoras? Any others?
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user arielddees
    Raphael's The School of Athens provides the
    viewer with the illusion of the three dimensional
    world on a two-dimensional surface
    by…
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Steffen Kurpierz
    Please take a moment to comment on whether my interpretation can be considered valid or whether there are major objections to it that I am unaware of.
    I always like to think of the scene as being set at the Athenean agora. I know that Raphael's architecture probably does not support that interpretation. Still, I believe this is an idealised version of the setting of socratic philosophying. Socrates is the centre of attention of one group here. He allegedly never wrote anything down. And all we know of his philosophy is taken from his appearences as a character in Plato's dialogues. With little writing going on, intellectual exchange in antiquity was essentially a spoken venture. Raphael is celebrating this quest for knowledge in dialogue.
    Thanks for considering this.
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Nicholas Donald Morrison
    When Raphael transferred his drawing of The School of Athens to the wall for painting, what substance did he force through perforations in the paper?
    (3 votes)
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  • mr pink orange style avatar for user rebekah.hamm
    Thank you so much- this was very informative!! Quick Question- did all the later Popes like this equality of the human knowledge and theology or did some oppose it? I feel like if it was in the private library then a Pope would have come along and have it replaced because they did not like the emphasis on the human?
    (2 votes)
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    • aqualine tree style avatar for user David Alexander
      You have a point, but once something is "logged into" the database of a library, it's awfully hard to dispose of it. I imagine that a new pope might not have so much trouble tossing away his predecessor's old copies of the newspaper or Readers' Digest, but books? That's an entirely different thing. Just because they're on the shelf doesn't mean that the Pope or anyone in the building ever has to read them.
      (2 votes)

Video transcript

- [Voiceover] We're in the very crowded and not very large room called the Stanza della Segnatura that is not only dense with people, but it's dense with imagery. We're looking at frescoes by Raphael. - [Voiceover] Painted during the High Renaissance at the same time that Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling just a few doors away. This room was originally a library, part of the papal apartments, that is the apartments where the Pope lived. In order to imagine what this room would have looked like at the beginning of the 16th Century, imagine away all of these people and imagine instead the lower walls lined with books. - [Voiceover] And also imagine quiet which is hard to do here, and an environment of learning where you could look up at what Raphael painted here on the four walls which are the four branches of human knowledge, philosophy, having to do with things of this world. - [Voiceover] The philosophy at this time also meant what we know call the sciences. - [Voiceover] On the opposite wall theology, having to do with issues relating to God and the divine. And on the two other walls, poetry and justice. So these four areas of human knowledge symbolized by allegorical figures that we see on the ceiling, and it's so clear that a few doors away is Michelangelo because Raphael is clearly looking at Michelangelo's figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel especially the prophets and the Sybils. What a moment in the High Renaissance all commissioned thanks to Pope Julius II. - [Voiceover] And think about what it means for theology to be presented equally with human knowledge. It is this extraordinarily liberal moment in church history. - [Voiceover] When humanist's classical learning can be united with the teachings of the church. In the center of the School of Athens, the frescoe that represents philosophy, we have the two great philosophers from antiquity in the center Plato and Aristotle surrounded by other great thinkers and philosophers and mathematicians from antiquity. - [Voiceover] Virtually, every known great figure, but let's start with the two in the center. We can tell Plato from Aristotle because Plato is older. Plato was, in fact, Aristotle's teacher, but also because he holds one of his own books, the Timaeus. - [Voiceover] And Aristotle holds his book, The Ethics. - [Voiceover] Both of those books represent the contrasting philosophies of these two men. Plato was known for being interested in the ethereal, the theoretical, that which could not be seen, and, in fact, we see him pointing upward. - [Voiceover] This idea that the world of appearances is not the final truth, that there is a realm that is based on mathematics, on pure idea that is more true than the everyday world that we see. - [Voiceover] Whereas, Aristotle, his student, focused his attention on the observable, the actual, the physical. You'll notice that his palm is down, and he seems to be saying, "No, no, no, "let's pay attention to what is here." - [Voiceover] Right, to what we can see and observe in the world. - [Voiceover] In fact, if you look at the colors that each of the figures wear, they refer to this division. Plato wears red and purple, the purple referring to the ether what we would call the air, the red to fire, neither of which have weight. Aristotle wears blue and brown that is the colors of earth and water which have gravity, which have weight. - [Voiceover] So the philosophers on either side of Plato and Aristotle continue this division. On the side of Plato, we see philosophers concerned with issues of the ideal. For example, on the lower left we see Pythagoras the great ancient mathematician who discovered laws of harmony in music, in mathematics. This idea that there is a reality that transcends the reality that we see. - [Voiceover] Compare that to the lower right where we see Euclid, the figure we associate with geometry. In fact, he seems to be drawing a geometric diagram for some very eager students. But he is interested in measure, that is the idea of the practical. - [Voiceover] Euclid is modeled actually on a friend of Raphael's and that's Bramante the great architect asked by Pope Julius II to provide a new model for a new Saint Peter's. - [Voiceover] And in fact, appropriate to his reincarnation here as Euclid, Bramante's design for Saint Peter's was based on a perfect geometry of circles and squares. - [Voiceover] And is really visible in the architecture that Raphael constructed for the School of Athens. Here we see an architecture that is very Bramantian, but also very ancient Roman. We have coffered barrel vaults, Pilasters. This is a space that ennobles the figures that it contains. - [Voiceover] And we can see representations of classical sculpture in the niches on the left, that is on the platonic side. We see Apollo, the God of the Sun, the God of Music, the God of Poetry, things that would be appropriate to the platonic. In turn on the right, we see Athena, the God of War and Wisdom, who presumably is involved in the more practical affairs of man. - [Voiceover] All of this seems to me to be a place that is the opposite of the Medieval where knowledge was something that was passed down by authority and one had to accept it. But here, on the walls of the papal apartments, we get this image of sharing knowledge and the history of the accumulation of knowledge all with figures who move beautifully who in their bodies represent a gracefulness that is a reflection of their inner wisdom and knowledge. - [Voiceover] You'll notice that Raphael has not placed any names within the painting. The only identifiers are perhaps the titles of the books that both Plato and Aristotle hold, and so we're meant to understand who these figures are through their movement, through their dress. Now, the artist has parted both groups to the left and the right so that the middle foreground is fairly empty. He does this, I think, for a couple of reasons. He wants the linear perspective at the bottom of the painting to balance the strong orthogonals at the top of the painting. He wants to make way for the advancement of Plato and Aristotle as they walk down the stairs, but we also have two figures in the foreground in the middle. We have Diogenes, and most interestingly, we have the ancient philosopher, Heraclitus, who seems to be writing and thinking quietly by himself. Most of the other figures in this painting are engaged with others, but not this man. He seems to be lost in his own thoughts. - [Voiceover] Well, and he is writing on a block of marble. In fact, his features are those of the great artist Michelangelo known for his rather lonely and brooding personality. Raphael has painted him here in the same pose as the prophet Isaiah on the Sistine ceiling although Isaiah looks up, and here Michelangelo's Heraclitus decidedly looks down. - [Voiceover] And so it's so interesting that Raphael is paying homage to Michelangelo the great artist here personifying Heraclitus, the philosopher who believed that all things were always in flux. - [Voiceover] That figure of Heraclitus was actually added later. Raphael finished the frescoe, added some wet plaster, and added in that figure. We should also note that Raphael included himself here. - [Voiceover] That's the young figure looking directly out at us in a black cap, and standing among some of the most important astronomers of all time. - [Voiceover] Including Ptolemy, who theorized about the movements of the planets. - [Voiceover] And Zoroaster, who's holding the celestial orb. - [Voiceover] We're so far here from the Medieval idea of the artist as a craftsman. Here the artist is considered an intellectual on par with some the greatest thinkers in history, who can express these important ideas. So we have dozens of figures here without any sense of stiffness or repetition. Raphael, like Leonardo, in The Last Supper divides the figures into groups. Each figure overlaps and moves easily between and amongst the others. My favorite two figures are the ones just behind Euclid, one leaning against the wall with his leg crossed over the other who's hurrying and writing some notes. The other leaning over and watching. - [Voiceover] There's a wonderful sense of intimacy there. - [Voiceover] I think it's a scene you could see walking along the hallway of any college or university. - [Voiceover] For all the free movement of the figures, the architecture itself is using a linear perspective in a rigorous way. You can follow the orthogonal either in the pavement, or in the cornices as they recede back. - [Voiceover] So the illusion of space here in incredible. -[Voiceover] Look at the way that the decoration of the Greek meander seems as if it goes back in space. What's interesting though is if this architecture is harking back to any ancient tradition, it's harking back to the Roman tradition not to the Greek's who would never use barrel vaults in this way. -[Voiceover] Nearby, Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo could see the Baths of Caracalla, or the Basilica of Manutius and Constantine. There was Roman architectural ruins all over the city that resembled what Raphael has painted here. - [Voiceover] It's so extraordinary that we're celebrating here, the Pantheon of great pagan thinkers. None of these men were Christians. Let's take a quick look at the frescoes that's opposite the School of Athens known as the Dispute. - [Voiceover] This frescoe represents theology, the study of the divine. Figures here are divided between the heavenly and the earthly. - [Voiceover] Close to the top we see God the Father in the dome of heaven. Below him, Christ in this marvelous full-body halo, or mandorla, and he's surrounded by the Virgin Mary on his right, and St. John the Baptist on his left. Just below, a dove against another gold disk, and this is the Holy Spirit, so all three together are the Trinity. - [Voiceover] On either side of the dove are the four books of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, that tell the story of the life of Christ. On that wonderful bench of clouds sit prophets and saints. - [Voiceover] And we can actually recognize, for instance, Moses holding the 10 commandments. - [Voiceover] And then another circle below contains the host, or the bread that is miraculously the body of Christ during the Mass. - [Voiceover]The bread functions as a link between heaven and earth. We can see how separated heaven and earth are in this fresco, and how important that link is. -[Voiceover] The figures along the bottom are Popes, and Bishops, and Cardinals, and members of various religious orders. - [Voiceover] The fathers of the church, we can make out a portrait of Dante, the great Medieval poet. - [Voiceover] We have a sense of the figures on the bottom of the frescoe, coming to divine knowledge through the miracle of the host, and two figures on either end seem to be moving away from that divine knowledge. - [Voiceover] But there's efforts being made to turn them around, to bring them back. - [Voiceover] So here, in the Stanza della Segnatura a room that functioned as the library for Pope Julius II, a celebration of all aspects of human knowledge.