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The School of Athens, or in Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, is one of the most famous painting
Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting....
s by the Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe....
 artist Raphael
Raphael

Raphael Sanzio, usually known by his first name alone was an Italy Painting and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings....
. It was painted between 1510
1510 in art

Events...
 and 1511
1511 in art

Events...
 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with fresco
Fresco

Fresco is any of several related painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the adjective fresco , which has Latin origins....
es the rooms now known as the , in the Apostolic Palace
Apostolic Palace

The Apostolic Palace, also called the Sacred Palace, the Papal Palace or the Palace of the Vatican, is the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City....
 in the Vatican
Vatican City

Vatican City , officially the State of the Vatican City , is a Landlocked country sovereignty city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the Capital of Italy....
. The was the first of the rooms to be decorated, and The School of Athens the second painting to be finished there, after , on the opposite wall. The picture has long been seen as "Raphael's masterpiece
Masterpiece

Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
 and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the High Renaissance
High Renaissance

The High Renaissance, in the history of art, denotes the culmination of the art of the Italian Renaissance between 1450 and 1527. Because Pope Julius II patronized many artists during this time, the movement was centered in Rome; it had previously been centered in Florence....
."

title "School of Athens" is an old tour-book’s invention, which tends to obscure the painting’s immediate context and meaning.






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The School of Athens, or in Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, is one of the most famous painting
Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting....
s by the Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe....
 artist Raphael
Raphael

Raphael Sanzio, usually known by his first name alone was an Italy Painting and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings....
. It was painted between 1510
1510 in art

Events...
 and 1511
1511 in art

Events...
 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with fresco
Fresco

Fresco is any of several related painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the adjective fresco , which has Latin origins....
es the rooms now known as the , in the Apostolic Palace
Apostolic Palace

The Apostolic Palace, also called the Sacred Palace, the Papal Palace or the Palace of the Vatican, is the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City....
 in the Vatican
Vatican City

Vatican City , officially the State of the Vatican City , is a Landlocked country sovereignty city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the Capital of Italy....
. The was the first of the rooms to be decorated, and The School of Athens the second painting to be finished there, after , on the opposite wall. The picture has long been seen as "Raphael's masterpiece
Masterpiece

Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
 and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the High Renaissance
High Renaissance

The High Renaissance, in the history of art, denotes the culmination of the art of the Italian Renaissance between 1450 and 1527. Because Pope Julius II patronized many artists during this time, the movement was centered in Rome; it had previously been centered in Florence....
."

Program, subject, figure identifications, interpretations

The title "School of Athens" is an old tour-book’s invention, which tends to obscure the painting’s immediate context and meaning. It is actually one of a group on the four walls of the Stanza (those on either side centrally interrupted by windows) that depict distinct themes of knowledge. Each theme is identified above by a separate tondo
Tondo (art)

A tondo is a Renaissance term for a circular work of art, either a painting or a sculpture. The word derives from the Italian language rotondo, "round." The term is usually not used in English for small round paintings, but only those over about two foot in diameter, thus excluding many round portrait miniatures....
 containing a majestic female figure seated in the clouds, with putti
Putto

The putto is a figure of a pudgy human baby, almost always male, often naked and having wings, found especially in Italian Renaissance art....
 bearing the phrases: “Seek Knowledge of Causes”, “Divine Inspiration”, “Knowledge of Things Divine” (Disputà), “To Each What Is Due”. Accordingly, the figures on the walls below exemplify Philosophy, Poetry (including Music), Theology, Law. The “School” is therefore actually "Philosophy", and its overhead tondo-label, “Causarum Cognitio” tells us what kind, as it appears to echo Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
’s emphasis on wisdom as knowing why, hence knowing the causes, in Metaphysics Book I and Physics Book II. Indeed, Aristotle appears to be the central figure in the scene below. However all the philosophers depicted sought to understand through knowledge of first causes. Many lived before Plato and Aristotle, hardly a third were Athenians, and the architecture is Roman, not Greek.

Commentators have suggested that nearly every great Greek philosopher can be found within 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
Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Ancient Greek e???? and ??afe?? ....
 to allude to various philosophers 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 the standard type for that philosopher. Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement on the identity of certain figures within the painting. Aside from the identities of the philosophers shown, many aspects of the fresco have been interpreted, but few such interpretations are generally 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 a likely reading. However 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
Four elements

Four elements may refer to:* Classical elements, such as air, fire, earth and water* 4 Elements, an album by Chronic Future* Group 4 element, one of the chemical elements in Group 4 of the periodic table...
 theory, held that all change on Earth was owing to the motions of the heavens. In the painting Aristotle carries his Ethics, which he denied could be a scientific study.

It is not established how much the young Raphael knew of ancient philosophy, what guidance he might have had from people such as Bramante, or what detailed program may have been dictated by the Papal sponsor. Heinrich Wölfflin
Heinrich Wölfflin

Heinrich W?lfflin was a famous Swiss art critic, whose objective classifying principles were influential in the development of formal analysis in the history of art during the 20th century....
 observed that "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. 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, and are grouped in a "polyphony" unlike anything in earlier art, in the ongoing dialogue of Philosophy.

The figures

The identity of some of the philosophers in the picture, such as Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 or Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
, is uncontroversial. But scholars disagree on many of the other figures, some of whom have double identities as ancients and as figures contemporary to Raphael. The extent of double portrayals is uncertain although, for example, that Michelangelo is portrayed (no. 13 below) is generally accepted. According to Lahanas, they are usually identified as follows: 1: Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium

Zeno of Citium was a Greeks philosopher from Citium , Cyprus. Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy which he taught in Athens, from about 300 BC....
 2: Epicurus
Epicurus

Epicurus was an Greek philosophy and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works....
 3: Federico II of Mantua? 4: Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

Anicius Manlius Severinus Bo?thius was a Christian or pagan philosopher of the 6th century. He was born in Rome to an ancient and important family which included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and many Roman consul....
 or Anaximander
Anaximander

Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Ancient Greece philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia. He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales....
 or Empedocles
Empedocles

Empedocles was a Hellenic civilization pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek colony in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the origin of the cosmogenesis theory of the four classical elements....
? 5: Averroes
Averroes

Abu 'l-Walid Mu?ammad ibn A?mad ibn Rushd , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was an Al-Andalus-Arab Muslim polymath: a master of early Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki Sharia and Fiqh, Logic in Islamic philosophy, Psychology in medieval Islam, Arabic music theory, and the Scien...
? 6: Pythagoras
Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
? 7: Alcibiades
Alcibiades

Alcibiades Cleiniou Scambonides , was a prominent History of Athens statesman, oratory, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War....
 or Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
? 8: Antisthenes
Antisthenes

Antisthenes , lived ca. 445-365 BCE, was a Greek philosopher and a pupil of Socrates. Antisthenes first learned rhetoric under Gorgias before becoming an ardent disciple of Socrates....
 or Xenophon
Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens and Xenophon of Thebes, was a soldier, mercenary and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates....
? 9: Hypatia
Hypatia of Alexandria

Hypatia of Alexandria was a Greeks scholar from Alexandria in Ancient Egypt, considered the first notable woman in mathematics, who also taught philosophy and astronomy....
 (Francesco Maria della Rovere
Francesco Maria I della Rovere

Francesco Maria I della Rovere was an Italy condottiero, who was Duke of Urbino from 1508 until 1538....
 or Raphael's mistress Margherita
La Fornarina

The Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting by the Italy High Renaissance master Raphael, made between 1518 and 1520. It is housed in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini, Rome....
) 10: Aeschines
Aeschines

Aeschines , Ancient Greece statesman and one of the ten Attic orators....
 or Xenophon
Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens and Xenophon of Thebes, was a soldier, mercenary and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates....
? 11: Parmenides
Parmenides

Parmenides of Elea was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy....
? 12: Socrates
Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
 13: Heraclitus
Heraclitus

Heraclitus of Ephesus was a Pre-Socratic philosophy Greeks philosopher, a native of Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor.Heraclitus is known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe, and that the Logos is the fundamental order of all....
 (Michelangelo
Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance Painting, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer....
) 14: Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 holding the Timaeus
Timaeus (dialogue)

Timaeus is a theoretical treatise of Plato in the form of a Socratic dialogue, written circa 360 Before Christ. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world....
 (Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italy polymath, being a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, Painting, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer....
) 15: Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 holding the Ethics
Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics, or Ta Ethika, is a work by Aristotle on virtue and moral character which plays a prominent role in defining Aristotelian ethics....
 16: Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope

Diogenes "the Cynic", Ancient Greece philosopher, was born in Sinope about 412 BC , and died in 323 BC, at Corinth. Details of his life come in the form of anecdotes , especially from Diogenes La?rtius, in his book Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers....
? 17: Plotinus
Plotinus

Plotinus was a major Philosophy of the ancient world who is widely considered the founder of Neoplatonism . Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry 's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads....
? 18: Euclid
Euclid

Euclid , floruit 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematics and is often referred to as the Father of Geometry. He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I ....
 or Archimedes
Archimedes

Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematics, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity....
 with students (Bramante
Donato Bramante

Donato Bramante was an Italian architect, who introduced the Early Renaissance style to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his most famous design was St....
)? 19: Strabo
Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
 or Zoroaster
Zoroaster

Zoroaster or Zarathushtra , also referred to as Zartosht , was an ancient Iranian peoples prophet and religious poet. The hymns attributed to him, the Gathas, are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism....
? (Baldassare Castiglione
Baldassare Castiglione

Baldassare Castiglione, count of Novilara , was an Italy courtier, diplomat, soldier and a prominent Renaissance author....
 or Pietro Bembo
Pietro Bembo

Pietro Bembo was a Republic of Venice scholar, poet, literary theory, and Catholic Cardinal. He was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language, specifically Tuscan, as a literary medium, and his writings assisted in the 16th-century revival of interest in the works of Petrarch....
) 20: Ptolemy
Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
? R: Apelles
Apelles

Apelles of Kos was a renowned Painting of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of this artist rated him superior to preceding and subsequent artists....
 (Raphael
Raphael

Raphael Sanzio, usually known by his first name alone was an Italy Painting and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings....
) 21: Protogenes
Protogenes

Protogenes was an ancient Ancient Greece Painting, a contemporary rival of Apelles. As with the other famous ancient Greek painters, none of his work has survived, and it is known only from literary references and descriptions....
 (Il Sodoma
Il Sodoma

Il Sodoma was the name given to the Italy Mannerism Painting Giovanni Antonio Bazzi Il Sodoma painted in a manner that superimposed the High Renaissance style of early 16th-century Rome onto the traditions of the provincial Sienese School; he spent the bulk of his professional life in Siena, with two periods in Rome....
, Perugino or Timoteo Viti
Timoteo Viti

Timoteo Viti, sometimes called Timoteo della Viti or Timoteo da Urbino , was an Italian people Renaissance Painting, who was closely associated with Raphael, who was fourteen years his junior....
)

Central figures (14 and 15)

Sanzio 01 Plato Aristotle
In the center of the fresco, at its architecture's central vanishing point
Vanishing point

A vanishing point is a point in a Perspective drawing to which parallel lines appear to converge. The number and placement of the vanishing points determines which perspective technique is being used....
, are the two undisputed main subjects: Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 on the left and Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
, his student, on the right. Both figures hold modern, bound copies of their books in their left hands, while gesturing with their right. Plato holds Timaeus
Timaeus (dialogue)

Timaeus is a theoretical treatise of Plato in the form of a Socratic dialogue, written circa 360 Before Christ. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world....
, Aristotle his Nicomachean Ethics
Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics, or Ta Ethika, is a work by Aristotle on virtue and moral character which plays a prominent role in defining Aristotelian ethics....
. Plato is depicted as old, grey, wise-looking, bare-foot. By contrast Aristotle, slightly ahead of him, is in mature manhood, handsome, well-shod and dressed, with gold, and the youth about them seem to look his way. In addition, these two central figures gesture along different dimensions: Plato vertically, upward along the picture-plane, into the beautiful vault above; Aristotle on the horizontal plan at right-angles to the picture-plane (hence in strong foreshortening), initiating a powerful flow of space toward viewers. Their gestures may indicate central aspects of their philosophies: Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 motioning upward toward The Forms, Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 palm downward, possibly emphasizing the study of things on Earth.

The setting

The building is in the shape of a Greek cross
Cross

A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run diagonally, the design is technically termed a saltire....
, which some have suggested was intended to show a harmony between pagan
Paganism

Paganism is the blanket term given to describe religions and spiritual practices of pre-Christian Europe, and by extension a term for polytheistic?traditions or folk religion?worldwide seen from a Western or Christian viewpoint....
 philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 and Christian theology
Christian theology

Christian theology is discourse concerning Christianity faith. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rationality analysis and argument to understanding, explanation, test, critic#critique, defend or promote Christianity....
 (see Christianity and Paganism
Christianity and Paganism

This article provides an overview of the relations between Christians and Pagans.Early Christianity developed in an era of the Roman Empire during which many religions were practiced, that are, due to the lack of a better term, labeled Paganism....
 and Christian philosophy
Christian philosophy

Christian philosophy is a term to describe the fusion of various fields of philosophy with the Theology doctrines of Christianity. Christian philosophy originated during the Middle Ages as medieval theologians attempted to demonstrate to the religious authorities that Greek philosophy and Christian faith were, in fact, compatible methods for...
). The architecture of the building was inspired by the work of Bramante
Donato Bramante

Donato Bramante was an Italian architect, who introduced the Early Renaissance style to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his most famous design was St....
, who, according to Vasari
Giorgio Vasari

Giorgio Vasari was an Italy Painting and architect, who is today famous for his biography of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art history writing....
, helped Raphael with the architecture in the picture. Some have suggested that the building itself was intended to be an advance view of St. Peter's Basilica
St. Peter's Basilica

The Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian language as the Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano and commonly known as St. Peter's Basilica, is located within the Vatican City....
.

There are two sculptures in the background. The one on the left is the god Apollo
Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
, god of the Sun, archery and music, holding a lyre
Lyre

The lyre is a string instrument well known for its use in classical antiquity and later. The recitations of the Ancient Greece were accompanied by lyre playing....
. The sculpture on the right is Athena
Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
, goddess of wisdom
Wisdom

Wisdom is knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion, and Intuition , along with a capacity to apply these qualities well towards finding solutions to problems....
, in her Roman guise as Minerva
Minerva

Minerva was the Roman mythology name of Greek goddess Athena. She was considered to be the virgin goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving,crafts, and the inventor of music....
.

Reproductions

The Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million Object ....
 has a rectangular version over 4 metres by 8 metres in size, painted on canvas, dated 1755 by Anton Raphael Mengs
Anton Raphael Mengs

Anton Raphael Mengs was an German painter, active in Rome, Madrid, and Saxony, who became one of the precursors to Neoclassicism painting....
 on display in the eastern Cast Court.

A reproduction of the fresco can be seen in the auditorium of Old Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public university research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson. Conceived by 1800 and established in 1819, it is the only university in the United States to be designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, an honor it shares with nearby Monticello....
. Produced in 1900 by George W. Breck to replace an older reproduction that was destroyed in a fire in 1895, it is four inch
Inch

An inch is the name of a Units of measurement of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units....
es off scale from the original, because the Vatican would not allow identical reproductions of its art works.

Other reproductions are: by Neide, in Königsberg Cathedral
Königsberg Cathedral

K?nigsberg Cathedral is a Brick Gothic style building in Kaliningrad on an island in the Pregel. The island was called Kneiphof in German times....
, Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea....
, in the University of North Carolina at Asheville
University of North Carolina at Asheville

The University of North Carolina Asheville is a co-educational, four year, public liberal arts university. The university is also known as UNC Asheville and UNCA....
's Highsmith University Student Union, and a recent one in the seminar room at Baylor University
Baylor University

Baylor University is a private university, Baptist-affiliated research university located in Waco, Texas. It is the largest Baptist university in the world by enrollment....
's Brooks College.

More recently the image was used by the band Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses is an American Rock music band, formed in Los Angeles, California, California in 1985. The band, led by frontman and co-founder Axl Rose, has gone through numerous line-up changes and controversies since their formation....
 for their 1991
1991 in music

See also:* 1991 in music * :Category:Record labels established in 1991...
 albums Use Your Illusion I
Use Your Illusion I

Use Your Illusion I is the third studio album by hard rock band Guns N' Roses. It was the one of two albums released in conjunction with the Use Your Illusion Tour, the other named Use Your Illusion II, thus they are sometimes seen together as a double album....
 and Use Your Illusion II
Use Your Illusion II

Use Your Illusion II is the fourth studio album by hard rock band Guns N' Roses. It was one of two albums released in conjunction with the Use Your Illusion Tour, and as a result the two albums are sometimes seen together as a double album....
 Extracts of the image, chiefly the two figures to the left of Plotinus
Plotinus

Plotinus was a major Philosophy of the ancient world who is widely considered the founder of Neoplatonism . Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry 's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads....
 (figure 17), were extracted by New York artist Mark Kostabi
Mark Kostabi

Kalev Mark Kostabi is an American artist and composer. He created the cover art for the Guns n' Roses Use Your Illusion albums. He also created the cover art for Glint album, Sound in Silence in 2008....
 for the cover art.

In popular culture

In Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4, known in Japan as , is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed by Capcom and published by multiple publishers, including Capcom, Ubisoft, and Nintendo....
, the painting can be seen in one of the rooms inside Ramon Salizar's castle.

Gallery


External links

  • at the Web Gallery of Art
  • (interactive map)
  • (interactive map)
  • at the Ambrosiana Gallery, Milan