Raphael's School of Athens

[Tamrin]

Raphael's School of Athens

Click on the link above, then select a character of your choice by clicking on their image



Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520), Scuola di Atene (1509-1510), Stanza della Segnatura (Vaticano).

[Tamrin]

Hypatia (5th century C.E.), was the last head of the Neo-Platonic School in Alexandria, famous for it museum and the greatest library in antiquity. In his ‘Encyclopedia’ (p.61), Albert Mackey says:

From this school we derive … the system of symbolism and allegory which lay at the foundation of the Masonic philosophy. To no ancient sect, indeed, except perhaps to the Pythagoreans, have the Masonic teachers been so much indebted for the substance of their doctrines, as well as the esoteric method of communicating them, as that of the School of Alexandria.

Her name, ‘Hypatia’, means, the ‘Most High’, the same name by which (according to various exposures) Freemasons refer to God in the third or sublime degree of a Master Mason. Moreover, her fate has allusions to Freemasonry’s Ancient Penalties (as also described in various exposures) especially that pertaining to the violation of the obligation in the third degree. The manner of her death* was as follows:

Having loyally supported Orestes, the pagan Prefect of Egypt, and having refused to restrict herself and her school to exclusively Christian doctrines, she incurred the wrath of Cyril, the fanatical Patriarch of Alexandria, (later declared to be a Father of the Church and a Saint). In March of 415, he incited a mob of his monks against her.

While she was going about her business, the ruffians stopped her chariot, dragged her into the Caesarean Church, stripped her naked and clubbed her to death. They then tore her limb from limb, scrapped the flesh from her bones and carried her remains to a place called the Cindron, where they burnt them to ashes; these they took and cast into the sea, to be lost and buried among the sands, so that no trace of their prey would remain among men.

Thus died Hypatia and with her fell the Neo-Platonic School of Alexandria, to which Mackey has said Freemasons are so greatly indebted for both their style and substance.

Long may we remember her: So mote it be.

References:
M.P. Hall, 1975, The Secret Teachings of All Ages (20th edition), Philosophical Research Society, Los Angeles
W. Hannah, 1952, Darkness Visible, Augustine Press, London
C. Kingsley, 1968, Hypatia, J.M. Dent & Sons, London
A.G. Mackey, 1917, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, McClure Publishing, Philadelphia

* From the similarity of Hypatia’s slaughter with the breaking, burning and scattering of the Asherah (meaning ‘stability’), a pillar-like cult object in King Solomon’s Temple, we may suppose that the violation of her remains was callously intended to parody that earlier desecration.

[Tamrin]

From the above link (Reply #1) we read:

Upon Raphael's submission of his preliminary compositional sketches of the fresco to the church fathers, the Bishop is alleged to have inquired as to the identity of a woman depicted standing at the bottom (front) and center of a sketch, in the foreground, between the figures of Parmenides and Diogenes, “Who is this woman in the middle?”

“Hypatia of Alexandria, the most famous student of the School of Athens,” replied the artist. “She was a professor of philosophy, mathematics and astronomy at the University of Alexandria and certainly one of the greatest thinkers ever.”

“Remove her. Knowledge of her runs counter to the belief of the faithful! Otherwise, the work is acceptable,” cautioned the Vatican's high priest.

The Bishop's words struck at the heart of Raphael's original artistic conception. It had been the artist's intention to depict Hypatia standing alone in the center foreground, located, spatially, between the viewers of the fresco and the central figures of Plato and Aristotle, as homage to her unique role, temporally, as guardian and transmitter of their ancient wisdom and inquiring spirit to their intellectual heirs in future eras.

Yielding to the power of the purse strings, Raphael's initial reaction was simply to omit the figure from his final working drawing, but he then proceeded instead to disguise his original intention as an intimate gesture to his holy patron. In an area which had been vacant in the preliminary compositional sketch, directly behind and between the images of Pythagoras and Parmenides, the artist's final working drawing, the “cartoon” (detail), bears the image of Hypatia, her dark skin recast to a very pale white and her facial features altered to resemble those of the “beloved” nephew of the Pope. Raphael thereby restored Hypatia to a rightful place in his masterpiece among her intellectual peers.

While the figure of Hypatia was displaced and disguised, her posture and demeanor were preserved. Unlike almost all of the other characters in the fresco, Hypatia is depicted, not engaged in philosophic inquiry with her peers, but instead directing her gaze out of the painting, towards the viewer standing in front of the fresco. The only other figures so depicted are those of the historian, Diogenes of Laertius, and the artist himself. Raphael thereby symbolizes the roles of the chronicler, the curator, and the artist in projecting, into the future, the intellectual and spiritual thrust of the School of Athens.

(Also, whereas the figure of Hypatia was displaced, the figure of Heraclitus is the only major figure in the entire work that was totally absent from Raphael's final working drawing, the “cartoon”, of all the figures in the fresco. In fact, subsequent examination of the fresco confirms that the figure of Heraclitus was painted in on an area of fresh plaster put on after the adjacent figures were completed. This block-like figure plugged up the visual hole, the expanse of marble steps and flooring in front of Plato and Aristotle, left unoccupied by Hypatia's displacement.)

Thus, the effeminate, white-robed figure in Scuola di Atene serves here to represent the first significant female philosopher, and the last philosopher, of the ancient age. The pale complexion and juvenile visage of Pope Julius II's beloved nephew was apparently sufficient distraction to have prevented the Pope's recognition of Raphael's representation of Hypatia of Alexandria, an official enemy of the Church, whose martyrdom at the hands of Nitrian monks had signaled the death of the classical world.