New identifications in Raphael's 'School of Athens.'

In the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, Raphael's seminary of Athens (1509-12) has drawn out been admired as a testimonial to Italian Neoplatonism.(1) However, above the centuries it has pos many question at issues to the iconographer (Fig. 1) Beginning with Giorgio Vasari in the mid-sixteenth hundred commentators have suggested that nearly each Greek philosopher and ancient scientist can be ground here.(2) Yet the problem of who exactly is depicted in this grand work is mixed by the fact that Raphael did not leave any personal notes upon his program, and there is no contemporary documentation to clarify the question. Nor was there any established artistic convention, either real or imaginary, in the early sixteenth hundred for representing these ancient philosophers. on the outside of necessity, therefore, Raphael virtually had to invent a completely fresh iconographic system for the figures he meditation the most important.(3)

Art historians are in agreement that Raphael was given more [i]or[/i] less kind of programmatic outline by means of others (no one knows precisely by the agency of whom), and with their help he examined all the pertinent sources in ancient art and literature.(4) however archaeological studies as we define them were still in an embryonic stage during the early years of the sixteenth hundred Even the correct identifications of ancient of greece busts, which would have provided potentially ideal sources for Raphael's philosophers, were hardly any in number, and the busts available were for the greatest part broken and had been fix without inscriptions.

Although single may presume that Raphael had seen the remnants of hellenic portrait busts in Florence and Rome and that these added to his invention of the "philosopher-type" to more [i]or[/i] less degree, the surprising fact is that of that kind fragments were not investigated until 1570 when Fulvio Orsini, librarian to the Farnese, first published his rather in a raw state findings.(5) Given this state of affairs during the years 1509-12 Raphael and his advisers could not have based the identification of any philosopher in the academy of Athens solely upon the archaeological evidence.

In order to depict these historical personages as accurately as possible, Raphael and his advisers would have been forced to proceed in another direction: to the works of the classical authors. In addition to the well-known writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch, De vitae et moribus philosophorum of Diogenes Laertius was evidently studied with great enthusiasm.(6) The Vitae of Laertius was a biographical work then solitary recently translated from the of greece Although it did not present useful physical descriptions, it did provide a hardly any details and anecdotes from the lives of the ancient philosophers. Chiefly from ancient sources of that kind as Laertius, I believe that Raphael began to put together iconographic motifs for the celebrated grecians of the School of Athens.(7)

Not each figure in this work is worthy of speculation, on the contrary it seems that the men whom Raphael clearly intended his audience to recognize are linked to specific iconography. These form the greatest in quantity reliable identifications: Plato and Aristotle indisputably are here, each holding a titled work; Pythagoras is in the lower left studying his tablet of harmonic proportions; Euclid is in the lower right area with his compass; near him, Ptolemy wears his diadem and holds a terrestrial globe; and Zoroaster clutchs his starry globe. Of the important philosophers, alone the alleged identification of Socrates is based on archaeological evidence - and of that kind an exception should raise questions.(8)

The attempts to identify Socrates in the gymnasium of Athens begin with Giovanni Bellori. In his Descrizzione of 1695 Socrates is the "bald" and Silenus-like "snub-nosed" philosopher seen in the middle of the collection to the left of Plato; he is speaking in profile to the man in armor [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED].(9) As there are many philosophers in this painting who are bald, the weight of Bellori's identification actually falls on the so-called snub nose. Notwithstanding a hypothetical bust of Socrates (ca. 1512) this identification looks highly questionable for at least sum of two units reasons. First, even if Raphael were following the literary sources for Socrates' "Silenus characteristics," these are not seen clearly here, nor, for that matter, are they seen upon any other figure in the place of education of Athens. Second, there are no attributes or other symbolic material to confirm Bellori's identification. In spite of these serious deficiencies, historians still insist that this is Socrates because he appears to bear a slight resemblance to the Silenus-type bust.(10)

Certainly the great Socrates, whose reputation was outstripped sole by Plato and Aristotle, must be depicted somewhere in the academy of Athens. But once the pre-1512 "archaeological evidence" has been dismissed, all past theories look groundless. Indeed, why would Socrates be positioned far not upon to the left, almost not to be found in a crowd? Why would he be depicted, unlike Plato and Aristotle, without any iconography, simply wearing a tunic and counting upon his fingers to a man in armor?