Originally published 2021-03-22.
Raphael's fresco The School of Athens, the composition that a French tapestry, hung in the Greek Parliament in 2021, reproduces in wool and silk. Plato and Aristotle stand at the centre under the arches.
In March 2021, as Greece marked 200 years since the start of its War of Independence, France sent a remarkable object to Athens: a large woven copy of Raphael's School of Athens that normally hangs in the chamber of the French National Assembly in Paris. On Monday 22 March 2021 it was put on display in the Hellenic Parliament, in the presence of Parliament Speaker Konstantinos Tasoulas and the French ambassador, Patrick Maisonnave. It was a loan, not a permanent transfer, and it became one of the highlights of the parliament's bicentenary exhibition.
Below is what the tapestry is, why France chose it, and why a Renaissance image of ancient philosophers carries so much weight for both countries.
What France lent to Greece, and when
The object is not Raphael's original painting. The fresco itself is painted directly onto a wall in the Vatican and cannot travel. What France lent was a tapestry made from Raphael's design at the Gobelins manufactory in Paris. Wikipedia dates the weaving to 1689, under a commission from Louis XIV; some news reports in 2021 described it as 17th century, others as 18th century.
According to Greek Reporter, the tapestry measures roughly 4 metres high by 9 metres wide and had hung in the French National Assembly since 1879. In 2017 it was taken down for a three-year restoration, and it went back on the wall of the Paris chamber in September 2020. Assembly President Richard Ferrand celebrated its return on social media, joking that lawmakers would now legislate under the gaze of Plato and Aristotle.
Only six months later the restored tapestry was packed for Athens. It arrived in the early hours of 22 March 2021 and was hung the same day. Later that year it formed part of the exhibition Beholding Liberty! At the Hellenic Parliament, two centuries later, staged in the Peristyle outside the Plenary Hall and in the Eleftherios Venizelos Hall. The ambassador summed up the gesture in one line:
"The School of Athens symbolizes our commitment to Democracy." (Patrick Maisonnave, French ambassador to Greece)
Why the bicentenary mattered
The Greek War of Independence is traditionally dated from 25 March 1821, when the uprising against Ottoman rule spread across the Peloponnese. That date is a national holiday in Greece, and the 200th anniversary in 2021 was marked with parades, exhibitions and visits by foreign leaders, scaled down in places because of the pandemic.
France has a special place in that story. French public opinion, along with British and Russian, fuelled the philhellene movement of the 1820s, and the three powers' fleets destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, a turning point that made an independent Greek state possible. Lending a picture of the founders of Western philosophy to the parliament of modern Greece was therefore a deliberate echo: France acknowledging a debt to ancient Greek thought and its own part in the birth of modern Greece.
The fresco behind the tapestry
Raphael painted The School of Athens between about 1509 and 1511 for Pope Julius II. It decorates one wall of the Stanza della Segnatura, the first of the rooms in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace now known as the Raphael Rooms. The fresco is about 5 metres high and 7.7 metres wide, which means the Gobelins weavers enlarged the composition rather than copying it at the same size.
The scene is an imagined gathering of thinkers from different centuries under a vast, classical vault. It was never meant to record a real classroom. Raphael was painting an idea: that reason, mathematics and philosophy belong together, and that the Renaissance was reviving them. Its companion fresco on the opposite wall, the Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, represents theology, so the room sets faith and reason face to face.
Raphael was in his late twenties when he began. He had worked in Florence, where he studied the art of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and their influence shows in the poses, the drama and the deep perspective. A popular claim says he learned directly from Leonardo; there is no record that he was Leonardo's pupil, so it is safer to say he absorbed Leonardo's example.
Who is in the picture
Only two identifications are beyond dispute. At the centre, framed by the arch, walks Plato, pointing upward to the world of ideas, beside Aristotle, whose open palm gestures toward the earth. Plato holds his Timaeus and Aristotle his Ethics. Many art historians think Plato's face was modelled on Leonardo.
The other figures are traditional identifications, argued over for five centuries:
- Socrates, in olive green to the left, counting off points on his fingers.
- Pythagoras, writing in a book in the lower left, surrounded by students.
- Heraclitus, the brooding figure leaning on a block in the foreground, often thought to be a portrait of Michelangelo, added late.
- Diogenes, sprawled alone on the steps.
- Euclid (or Archimedes), bending over a slate with compasses, possibly with the features of the architect Bramante.
- Ptolemy and Zoroaster, holding globes on the right, and next to them a young man looking out at the viewer, widely accepted as Raphael's self-portrait.
Two statues stand in the niches: Apollo, god of music and poetry, with his lyre on the left, and Athena in her Roman form as Minerva, goddess of wisdom, on the right.
Copies, tapestries and pop culture
Tapestry copies of famous paintings were the prestige reproductions of their day. A royal workshop such as the Gobelins could turn a fresco that only visitors to Rome could see into a portable, durable work for a palace in Paris. That is why a 17th-century French weaving can now travel when the original never will.
The composition has been copied many times since. Anton Raphael Mengs painted a canvas version in 1755 that is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Painted reproductions hang in Königsberg Cathedral in Kaliningrad and in the Highsmith University Student Union at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Rock fans know two figures from the left side of the fresco from the covers of Guns N' Roses' 1991 albums Use Your Illusion I and II, recoloured in loud yellow and red.
The art historian H. W. Janson, whose textbook taught generations of students, called the fresco Raphael's masterpiece and "the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance".
Why the gesture still resonates
Cultural loans between governments are rarely just about art. This one linked three moments: ancient Athens, where Plato and Aristotle taught; Renaissance Rome, where Raphael turned them into heroes of reason; and 1820s Europe, where admiration for that heritage helped win support for Greek independence. Hanging the tapestry in a working parliament, rather than a museum, made the point that democracy and open argument are living traditions.
If you visit Athens, the Hellenic Parliament runs guided tours, and its exhibitions change over time. To see the real fresco, you need the Vatican Museums in Rome, where the Raphael Rooms are part of the standard route.
Sources: Wikipedia: The School of Athens; Greek Reporter: France loans Raphael's School of Athens to Greece; Greek Reporter: School of Athens adorns Greek Parliament; Greek News Agenda: Beholding Liberty exhibition. Image: Raphael, The School of Athens, Vatican Museums (public domain).
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