Raphael, School of Athens, 1509-11. detail, Vatican Museums (7) (48758929323)

This central detail of the fresco shows Plato pointing skyward to signify his idealist philosophy while holding the Timaeus, alongside Aristotle who gestures toward the earth to represent his empiricist focus while holding the Ethics. Below them, the cynical philosopher Diogenes reclines on the steps, and in the lower foreground, a melancholic figure identified as Heraclitus sits alone writing. The scene is set within a massive, classically inspired vaulted space that emphasizes intellectual harmony.

The work is the supreme visual expression of the Renaissance reconciliation between Neoplatonism and Aristotelian natural philosophy. It illustrates the 'perennial philosophy' (philosophia perennis), the belief that a single, universal truth was revealed through the ancient sages of various traditions.