orgotten under the ignorance and the
fighting of the Middle Ages. Now it was brought to light, and the
recovered treasure was the common possession of Italy, not indeed so
much of the plain people as of the learned men and the artists.

Raphael, as an artist, took delight in the statues which had been
found, and the other signs of Greek and Roman art; but it is not to be
supposed that he would know Homer and Virgil and Horace and Pindar and
Sappho at first hand. He had, however, friends among the learned men,
who could tell him of the treasures of classic literature, and his
imagination was quick to seize this material and adapt it to artistic
purposes.

NOTE.--The key to Parnassus on page 61 is based on the
description of the painting in Cav. E. G. Massi's
"Descrizione delle Gallerie di Pittura nel Pontificio
Palazzo Vaticano," the authoritative guide-book to the
Vatican. Miss Eliza Allen Starr, in her monograph on the
frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura, called "The Three
Keys," identifies some of the figures differently, following
the authority of Dandolo's lectures. The "unknown" figure
she calls Sordello.

XII

SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES

In the same room which holds Parnassus, with Poetry above on the
ceiling, there is another wall painting by Raphael, which commonly
bears the name of The School of Athens, though that name was not
originally applied to it. In the ceiling above is a figure
representing Philosophy, and the picture below carries out the idea in
its presentation of an assembly of scholars.

Just as in Parnassus Raphael brought together as in a beautiful dream
the god of poetry, the nine muses, and famous poets of the ancient and
what was to him the modern world, so, in the School of Athens, he has
assembled a great company of philosophers, chiefly out of the famous
line of Greek scholars. In a general way he has divided the assembly
into two groups, one of men who devote themselves to pure thought, the
other of those who apply their thought to science, like geometry,
arithmetic, astronomy, and music.

There are more than fifty figures in this great painting. Raphael has
made it clear whom he meant to represent, in many cases. They were the
philosophers, whom his friends among the cardinals and learned men
were so enthusiastic about. But he has also gathered about these
teachers those who might be their pupils; they are in many cases young