Rafael's painting The School of Athens is a representation of the bridge between classical and the contemporary thought of the renaissance. The connection is shown by placing the great artists and thinkers of the renaissance in the place of the great philosophers of ancient Greece. This coincides with the ideas of humanism, which look towards the classical texts of ancient Greece for the teachings of rhetoric and the humanities.
[...] This figure represents the philosopher Heraclitus, who favored the solitary nature of creative temperament. His pose on the table represents the prophets from the Sistine Ceiling and the face that is a portrait of Michelangelo. Along with Michelangelo being represented as Heraclitus, Plato strikes a resemblance to Leonardo Di Vinci, and Euclid the geometrician resembles Bramante. Many other classical philosophers are shown within the space, such as Pythagoras who is shown in the left foreground explaining the diatessaron, which is a combination of the four gospels into a single narrative. [...]
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