Raffaello

Starting from the second half of the 15th century, the rediscovery of the classics leads to a holistic vision of knowledge with a strong interest in the exact sciences. This is what happens with Raffaello’s Vatican fresco named The School of Athens, where a stately building is represented in full view: probably the seat of the platonic academy, which constitutes its backdrop. The complementarity with the Disputa on the opposite wall reveals the use of the same formula and the same metric, although here less evident in the free unfolding of the landscape than in the rigor of the buildings. Beyond the image, the compositional substratum and the thought that guided the choices emerge. The book is a path of research that reveals its profound essence, its scriptural ancestors, its wisdom contents. A message to be read as a yearning for knowledge, overshadowed by the enigmatic figure dressed in white, placed on the left, on which the founding lines of the composition converge.

Presentation by Marco Bussagli. Contributions by Luigi Grasselli, Franca Manenti Valli, and Ivanna Rossi. Appendix by Matteo Francesconi.