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| Raphael, The School of Athens |
Nothing prepares you for the impact of this magnificent fresco which takes up a whole wall . We gazed at it both yesterday and today.
In the foreground is Michaelangelo in this famous boots leaning on a marble block.
Michelangelo controlled strict access to his unfinished work in theSistine Chapel, but Raphael Sanzio was secretly allowed to glimpse the wondrous paintings there contemporaneously in progress with his own. Overwhelmed, Raphael then returned to remove a section of painted fresco, and replaced it with the figure of Michelangelo lounging on his block.
And here’s Raphael himself in a black beret.
It’s a splendid light-filled tribute to one of the greatest periods in human history!! Plato and Aristotle debate; there’s Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid and Diogenes.
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| A bearded Socrates. |
We were pleased to visit Rome in the off-season in which we could stand and gaze at it, in relative peace and quiet for as long as we wished!
