The School of Athens, or Scuola di Atene in Italian, is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in theApostolic Palace in the Vatican. The Stanza della Segnatura was the first of the rooms to be decorated, and The School of Athens, representing Philosophy, was probably the second painting to be finished there,[1] after La Disputa (Theology) on the opposite wall, and the Parnassus (Literature). The picture has long been seen as "Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance.
The School of Athens is one of a group of four main frescoes on the walls of the Stanza (those on either side centrally interrupted by windows) that depict distinct branches of knowledge. Each theme is identified above by a separate tondo containing a majestic female figure seated in the clouds, with putti bearing the phrases: "Seek Knowledge of Causes," "Divine Inspiration," "Knowledge of Things Divine" (Disputa), "To Each What Is Due." Accordingly, the figures on the walls below exemplify Philosophy, Poetry (including Music), Theology, and Law.[3] The traditional title is not Raphael’s. The subject of the "School" is actually "Philosophy," or at least ancient Greek philosophy, and its overhead tondo-label, "Causarum Cognitio," tells us what kind, as it appears to echo Aristotle’s emphasis on wisdom as knowing why, hence knowing the causes, in Metaphysics Book I and Physics Book II. Indeed, Plato and Aristotle appear to be the central figures in the scene. However, all the philosophers depicted sought knowledge of first causes. Many lived before Plato and Aristotle, and hardly a third were Athenians. The architecture contains Roman elements, but the general semi-circular setting having Plato and Aristotle at its centre might be alluding to Pythagoras’ circumpunct.
Commentators have suggested that nearly every great ancient Greek philosopher can be found in the painting, but determining which are depicted is difficult, since Raphael made no designations outside possible likenesses, and no contemporary documents explain the painting. Compounding the problem, Raphael had to invent a system of iconography to allude to various figures for whom there were no traditional visual types. For example, while the Socrates figure is immediately recognizable from Classical busts, the alleged Epicurus is far removed from his standard type. Aside from the identities of the figures depicted, many aspects of the fresco have been variously interpreted, but few such interpretations are unanimously accepted among scholars. The popular idea that the rhetorical gestures of Plato and Aristotle are kinds of pointing (to the heavens, and down to earth) is very likely. But Plato’s Timaeus – which is the book Raphael places in his hand – was a sophisticated treatment of space, time, and change, including the Earth, which guided mathematical sciences for over a millennium. Aristotle, with his four-elements theory, held that all change on Earth was owing to motions of the heavens. In the painting Aristotle carries his Ethics, which he denied could be reduced to a mathematical science. It is not certain how much the young Raphael knew of ancient philosophy, what guidance he might have had from people such as Bramante, or whether a detailed program was dictated by his sponsor, Pope Julius II. Nevertheless, the fresco has even recently been interpreted as an exhortation to philosophy and, in a deeper way, as a visual representation of the role of Love in elevating people toward upper knowledge, largely in consonance with contemporary theories of Marsilio Ficino and other neo-Platonic thinkers linked to Raphael.[4] Finally, according to Vasari, the scene includes Raphael himself, the Duke of Mantua, Zoroaster and some Evangelists.[5]
However, as Heinrich Wölfflin observed, "it is quite wrong to attempt interpretations of the ‘School of Athens’ as an esoteric treatise ... The all-important thing was the artistic motive which expressed a physical or spiritual state, and the name of the person was a matter of indifference" in Raphael’s time.[6] What is evident is Raphael’s artistry in orchestrating a beautiful space, continuous with that of viewers in the Stanza, in which a great variety of human figures, each one expressing "mental states by physical actions," interact, in a "polyphony" unlike anything in earlier art, in the ongoing dialogue of Philosophy.[7]
An interpretation of the fresco relating to hidden symmetries of the figures and the star constructed by Bramante was given by Guerino Mazzola and collaborators
《雅典學院》（意大利语：Scuola di Atene），一译《雅典学派》，是義大利文藝復興艺术家拉斐尔因受任装饰梵蒂冈使徒宫，而在1509年至1510年间创作的一幅濕壁畫，位于拉斐尔房间的签字厅，[1] 目前是梵蒂冈博物馆的一部分。此作被廣泛認定為拉斐爾的代表作之一，象征著文藝復興全盛期的精神。
這是教宗命拉斐爾畫的畫。在透視點的二人分別為柏拉圖及亞里士多德。人群後、左、右兩邊牆壁上的是阿波羅及雅典娜二神的雕像。眾人包括哲學、詩歌、音樂、神學等學者，都是教王喜歡的範籌。更加以哲學的殿堂來代表教宗家。
在這件作品中，讓每個哲學家都顯現「個人靈魂」的企圖，用以區別個體之間不同的關係，並將他們連接在形式上的韻律中，處理人與背景相互關係接近列奥纳多·达·芬奇的做法；但整體構圖中出現古典樣式大廳－超高圓頂、酒桶穹窿(Barrel Vault)、巨大的人像－乃是受到布拉曼特(Bramante)的影響，預言它未來是放置在圣彼得大教堂中的模樣。乃透視學的高峰，承襲前人的精華而成。拉斐爾將西方文明不同時期的人集中在同個空間，古希臘、古羅馬和作者所在时代義大利哲學家、藝術家、科學家薈萃一堂，表現自身篤信人類智慧和諧，並讚美西方文明的智慧結晶。
拉斐爾比達文西、米開朗基羅都晚出生，卻比米開朗基羅早死四十多年，只比達文西晚死一年，是相當短命的藝術家。如果要用幾個字來形容拉斐爾，那就是和諧、圓融、愉快、優美、溫和。不僅畫風如此，待人也是如此。他跟達文西、米開朗基羅一樣，身處愛藝術文化的教皇朱力阿斯二世的威嚴之下，但是拉斐爾卻跟朱力阿斯二世處的很好，隨後的利奧十世，也最喜歡他，是個人見人愛的年輕人。25歲那年，朱力阿斯二世邀請拉斐爾為梵諦岡宮的簽字大廳畫壁畫。拉斐爾與教皇、學者們交換意見許久以後，決定依據詩人德拉·欣雅杜爾的詩來配畫，以歌頌神學、哲學、詩歌、法學為內容：神學的「聖禮的辯論」、哲學的「雅典學院」、詩歌的「帕拿巴斯山」、法學的「三德」(真理<女人看鏡子>、權力<腳伏獅子，手拿代表法律的樹枝>、節制<手拿繩索看天使>)。
「雅典學院」這幅畫中，拉斐爾把不同時期的人全都集中在一個空間，古希臘羅馬和當代義大利五十多位哲學家藝術家科學家薈萃一堂，表現自己篤信人類智慧的和諧、並對人類智慧的讚美。這麼多哲學家集中於一畫面，拉斐爾很聰慧的把不同人物，按其個別的思想特點，以最易讓人理解和感覺的方法繪畫出來。
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