- [Voiceover] We're in the very crowded
and not very large room called the Stanza della Segnatura
that is not only dense with people,
but it's dense with imagery.
We're looking at frescoes by Raphael.
- [Voiceover] Painted during the High Renaissance
at the same time that Michelangelo was painting
the Sistine Chapel ceiling just a few doors away.
This room was originally a library,
part of the papal apartments,
that is the apartments where the Pope lived.
In order to imagine what this room would have looked like
at the beginning of the 16th Century,
imagine away all of these people
and imagine instead the lower walls lined with books.
- [Voiceover] And also imagine quiet
which is hard to do here,
and an environment of learning where you could
look up at what Raphael painted here on the four walls
which are the four branches of human knowledge,
philosophy, having to do with things of this world.
- [Voiceover] The philosophy at this time
also meant what we know call the sciences.
- [Voiceover] On the opposite wall theology,
having to do with issues relating to God
and the divine.
And on the two other walls, poetry and justice.
So these four areas of human knowledge symbolized
by allegorical figures that we see on the ceiling,
and it's so clear that a few doors away is Michelangelo
because Raphael is clearly looking
at Michelangelo's figures on the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel especially the prophets
and the Sybils.
What a moment in the High Renaissance
all commissioned thanks to Pope Julius II.
- [Voiceover] And think about what it means
for theology to be presented equally
with human knowledge.
It is this extraordinarily liberal moment
in church history.
- [Voiceover] When humanist's classical learning
can be united with the teachings of the church.
In the center of the School of Athens,
the frescoe that represents philosophy,
we have the two great philosophers from antiquity
in the center Plato and Aristotle
surrounded by other great thinkers and philosophers
and mathematicians from antiquity.
- [Voiceover] Virtually, every known great figure,
but let's start with the two in the center.
We can tell Plato from Aristotle because
Plato is older.
Plato was, in fact, Aristotle's teacher,
but also because he holds one of his own books,
the Timaeus.
- [Voiceover] And Aristotle holds his book, The Ethics.
- [Voiceover] Both of those books represent
the contrasting philosophies of these two men.
Plato was known for being interested in the ethereal,
the theoretical, that which could not be seen,
and, in fact, we see him pointing upward.
- [Voiceover] This idea that the world of appearances
is not the final truth,
that there is a realm that is based on mathematics,
on pure idea that is more true
than the everyday world that we see.
- [Voiceover] Whereas, Aristotle, his student,
focused his attention on the observable,
the actual, the physical.
You'll notice that his palm is down,
and he seems to be saying, "No, no, no,
"let's pay attention to what is here."
- [Voiceover] Right, to what we can see
and observe in the world.
- [Voiceover] In fact, if you look at the colors
that each of the figures wear,
they refer to this division.
Plato wears red and purple,
the purple referring to the ether
what we would call the air,
the red to fire, neither of which have weight.
Aristotle wears blue and brown
that is the colors of earth and water
which have gravity, which have weight.
- [Voiceover] So the philosophers on either side
of Plato and Aristotle continue this division.
On the side of Plato, we see philosophers
concerned with issues of the ideal.
For example, on the lower left we see Pythagoras
the great ancient mathematician
who discovered laws of harmony in music, in mathematics.
This idea that there is a reality that transcends
the reality that we see.
- [Voiceover] Compare that to the lower right
where we see Euclid, the figure we associate with geometry.
In fact, he seems to be drawing a geometric diagram
for some very eager students.
But he is interested in measure,
that is the idea of the practical.
- [Voiceover] Euclid is modeled actually
on a friend of Raphael's and that's Bramante
the great architect asked by Pope Julius II
to provide a new model for a new Saint Peter's.
- [Voiceover] And in fact, appropriate to
his reincarnation here as Euclid,
Bramante's design for Saint Peter's was based on
a perfect geometry of circles and squares.
- [Voiceover] And is really visible in the architecture
that Raphael constructed for the School of Athens.
Here we see an architecture that is very Bramantian,
but also very ancient Roman.
We have coffered barrel vaults, Pilasters.
This is a space that ennobles the figures that it contains.
- [Voiceover] And we can see representations
of classical sculpture in the niches on the left,
that is on the platonic side.
We see Apollo, the God of the Sun,
the God of Music, the God of Poetry,
things that would be appropriate to the platonic.
In turn on the right, we see Athena,
the God of War and Wisdom,
who presumably is involved in the more
practical affairs of man.
- [Voiceover] All of this seems to me to be
a place that is the opposite of the Medieval
where knowledge was something that was passed down
by authority and one had to accept it.
But here, on the walls of the papal apartments,
we get this image of sharing knowledge
and the history of the accumulation of knowledge
all with figures who move beautifully
who in their bodies represent a gracefulness
that is a reflection of their inner
wisdom and knowledge.
- [Voiceover] You'll notice that Raphael
has not placed any names within the painting.
The only identifiers are perhaps the titles of the books
that both Plato and Aristotle hold,
and so we're meant to understand
who these figures are through their movement,
through their dress.
Now, the artist has parted both groups to the left
and the right so that the middle foreground
is fairly empty.
He does this, I think, for a couple of reasons.
He wants the linear perspective
at the bottom of the painting to balance
the strong orthogonals at the top of the painting.
He wants to make way for the advancement
of Plato and Aristotle as they walk down the stairs,
but we also have two figures in the foreground
in the middle.
We have Diogenes, and most interestingly,
we have the ancient philosopher, Heraclitus,
who seems to be writing and thinking quietly
by himself.
Most of the other figures in this painting
are engaged with others, but not this man.
He seems to be lost in his own thoughts.
- [Voiceover] Well, and he is writing
on a block of marble.
In fact, his features are those
of the great artist Michelangelo known for his
rather lonely and brooding personality.
Raphael has painted him here
in the same pose as the prophet Isaiah
on the Sistine ceiling although Isaiah looks up,
and here Michelangelo's Heraclitus decidedly looks down.
- [Voiceover] And so it's so interesting
that Raphael is paying homage to Michelangelo
the great artist here personifying Heraclitus,
the philosopher who believed that all things
were always in flux.
- [Voiceover] That figure of Heraclitus
was actually added later.
Raphael finished the frescoe, added some wet plaster,
and added in that figure.
We should also note that Raphael included himself here.
- [Voiceover] That's the young figure looking
directly out at us in a black cap,
and standing among some of the most important
astronomers of all time.
- [Voiceover] Including Ptolemy, who theorized
about the movements of the planets.
- [Voiceover] And Zoroaster, who's holding
the celestial orb.
- [Voiceover] We're so far here from the Medieval
idea of the artist as a craftsman.
Here the artist is considered an intellectual
on par with some the greatest thinkers in history,
who can express these important ideas.
So we have dozens of figures here
without any sense of stiffness or repetition.
Raphael, like Leonardo, in The Last Supper
divides the figures into groups.
Each figure overlaps and moves easily
between and amongst the others.
My favorite two figures are the ones just behind Euclid,
one leaning against the wall with his leg
crossed over the other who's hurrying
and writing some notes.
The other leaning over and watching.
- [Voiceover] There's a wonderful sense of intimacy there.
- [Voiceover] I think it's a scene you could see
walking along the hallway of any college or university.
- [Voiceover] For all the free movement of the figures,
the architecture itself is using a linear perspective
in a rigorous way.
You can follow the orthogonal either in the pavement,
or in the cornices as they recede back.
- [Voiceover] So the illusion of space here
in incredible.
-[Voiceover] Look at the way that the decoration
of the Greek meander seems as if it goes back in space.
What's interesting though is if this architecture
is harking back to any ancient tradition,
it's harking back to the Roman tradition
not to the Greek's who would never use
barrel vaults in this way.
-[Voiceover] Nearby, Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo
could see the Baths of Caracalla,
or the Basilica of Manutius and Constantine.
There was Roman architectural ruins all over the city
that resembled what Raphael has painted here.
- [Voiceover] It's so extraordinary that we're
celebrating here, the Pantheon of great pagan thinkers.
None of these men were Christians.
Let's take a quick look at the frescoes
that's opposite the School of Athens
known as the Dispute.
- [Voiceover] This frescoe represents theology,
the study of the divine.
Figures here are divided between the heavenly
and the earthly.
- [Voiceover] Close to the top we see God the Father
in the dome of heaven.
Below him, Christ in this marvelous full-body halo,
or mandorla, and he's surrounded by the Virgin Mary
on his right, and St. John the Baptist on his left.
Just below, a dove against another gold disk,
and this is the Holy Spirit,
so all three together are the Trinity.
- [Voiceover] On either side of the dove
are the four books of the gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, that tell the story
of the life of Christ.
On that wonderful bench of clouds sit prophets and saints.
- [Voiceover] And we can actually recognize, for instance,
Moses holding the 10 commandments.
- [Voiceover] And then another circle below
contains the host, or the bread that is miraculously
the body of Christ during the Mass.
- [Voiceover]The bread functions as a link
between heaven and earth.
We can see how separated heaven and earth are
in this fresco, and how important that link is.
-[Voiceover] The figures along the bottom
are Popes, and Bishops, and Cardinals,
and members of various religious orders.
- [Voiceover] The fathers of the church,
we can make out a portrait of Dante,
the great Medieval poet.
- [Voiceover] We have a sense of the figures
on the bottom of the frescoe,
coming to divine knowledge through the miracle
of the host, and two figures on either end
seem to be moving away from that divine knowledge.
- [Voiceover] But there's efforts being made to turn them around,
to bring them back.
- [Voiceover] So here, in the Stanza della Segnatura
a room that functioned as the library
for Pope Julius II, a celebration of all aspects
of human knowledge.