How to Read Paintings: The School of Athens by Raphael

Ancient Greece in the heart of the Pope’s palace

The School of Athens (1509–1511) by Raphael. Fresco at the Raphael Rooms, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City. Image source Wikimedia Commons

If you’ve ever visited the Vatican City in Rome and walked through the decorated rooms of the Apostolic Palace, you’ll know how the profusion of art on display is overwhelming.

Visitors are led through room after room whose walls and ceilings are covered in immense fresco paintings. Four rooms in particular stand out, known as the Stanze di Raffaello (the ‘Raphael Rooms’). These are a suite of reception rooms decorated by the Italian painter Raphael and his workshop during the early years of the 16th century. Museum visitors tend to see these first, before being led onto the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo painted his famous ceiling frescoes.

It is in the Raphael Rooms that the image known as The School of Athens is displayed. Painted in around 1510, it covers one wall of the Stanza della Segnatura (the ‘Signature Room’). This room was a council chamber where most of the important papal documents were signed and sealed with ‘bulls’ of wax or lead.

Raphael was commissioned to paint the walls of the Stanza della Segnatura by Pope Julius II. Julius was an industrious pope whose visionary ambitions for the Christian faith saw him undertake numerous architectural and artistic projects.

Born in 1443, Julius was an old man by the time he became the head of the Catholic Church, but that didn’t mean he was short of energy. Not only was St Peter’s Basilica being rebuilt by the architect Bramante, Julius was also engaged in an elaborate decoration project for his private papal suite.

At the time, the Vatican Library was swelling with newly recovered ancient Greek, Hebrew and Christian manuscripts brought to Rome by refugees from the recent siege of Constantinople. Julius saw it as his duty to preserve these ancient texts; indeed, the paintings in the Stanza della Segnatura are an expression of that wish to conserve and exalt the wisdom of the ancient past.

The Stanza della segnatura (‘Room of the Signatura’) with ‘The School of Athens’ fresco on the right. Image source Wikimedia Commons

The Stanza della Segnatura is a roughly square room with paintings on all four walls…