Raphael / Michelangelo / Donatello

Raphael's School of Athens is considered a high point of humanism. We can understand this by considering some basic facts about the work: it is a fresco painting done on a wall in the Vatican, arguably the center of Christianity in the world, and yet it depicts a large number of figures, the vast majority of whom had never even heard the name "Jesus Christ." This is not to imply that humanism was somehow a pagan phenomenon (although various humanists ranging from Marsilio Ficino to Giordano Bruno did their best) but rather that one of the most salient effects of Renaissance humanism was the revival of classical learning and the rediscovery and publication of Greek and Latin texts. For example, Plato -- depicted centrally in Raphael's School of Athens, pointing his finger upward toward God and the heavens -- had gone mostly unread for centuries,...
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