Download or read book Raphael's "School of Athens" written by Marcia B. Hall and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Raphael's "School of Athens" examines one of the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance and the artist's best known work. Commissioned by Pope Julius II to decorate the walls of his private library, the fresco represents the gathering of the philosophers of the ancient world around the central figures of Plato and Aristotle. Presented in this volume are the early criticism of the fresco along with new interpretations of its iconography in relation to the other frescoes in the Stanza and in the context of the humanism and rhetorical tradition of the papal court.