The Medieval Content of Raphael's "School of Athens"

Abstract

Few works of art have been so differently interpreted by their commentators as Raphael's School of Athens. Since the seventeenth century the famous fresco has usually been considered to be a triumphant representation of worldly science and philosophy, strictly separated from theology, represented in the opposite fresco of the Disputa. However, the commentators of the sixteenth century, Vasaril as well as Borghini2 and Lomazzo,3 did not share this point of view. They all saw in the picture rather a glorification of Christianity and Christian theology. According to Vasari the picture shows theologians engaged in the reconciliation of Philosophy and Astrology with Theology. In the work all the sages of the world are depicted, arranged in different groups, and occupied with various disputations. There are certain astrologers standing apart who have made figures and characters of geomancy and astrology, on tablets which they send by beautiful angels to the evangelists who explain them. . . . St. Matthew is copying the characters from the tablet which an angel holds before him, and setting them down in a book. Borghini literally copied this interpretation. The engraving by Agostino di Musi changes the design of St. Matthew's tablet into the Angelic Salute, thus elucidating the meaning of the group of the evangelists. Vasari was nine years old when Raphael died. He is the only one of the commentators on the picture who can be considered a contemporary. He had the opportunity of meeting many older contemporaries and even friends and pupils of the master, who were able to give him valuable information. For this reason his writings, so far as Raphael is concerned, should be taken as a relatively trustworthy source. Nevertheless, with the sole exception of Borghini, almost all the later interpreters ignored Vasari's report. Lomazzo saw in the 1 Vasari, Le Vite, Florence 1550, Vita di Raffaello. 2Borghini, 11 Riposo, Florence 1584. 3 Lomazzo, Trattato dell' Arte della Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura, Milan 1584, Libro VI, Cap. II. 4Agostino di Musi (Agostino Veniziano), engraving B 492, from 1923. 420