The School of Athens
By Raphael Sanzio
Author Award for May 2025Commissioned by Pope Julius II to decorate the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, "The School of Athens" is one of the crowning achievements of the Italian High Renaissance. Raphael created the fresco as part of a series representing different branches of human knowledge, with this one specifically celebrating philosophy. At its center stand Plato and Aristotle, shown walking and debating as they hold their respective books.
Raphael populated the fresco with an array of other historical thinkers, many of whose faces are modeled after his contemporaries. Leonardo da Vinci appears as Plato, Michelangelo is depicted as the brooding Heraclitus, and Raphael even included a self-portrait as a young observer standing at the edge of the crowd. The careful arrangement of the figures into groups mirrors the different schools of thought, with geometry, astronomy, and philosophy each represented.
Year: 1509-1511
Medium: Fresco
Location: Apostolic Palace, Vatican City
Ownership Stats
Players with unframed copies: 2
Players with framed copies: 3