Reading Raphael: 'The School of Athens' and its pre-text

Raphael's painting, 'The School of Athens,' pictorially represents the intellectual activity of philosophy by depicting philosophers engaged in their pursuit of knowledge. Although the allegorical figure of Dame Philosophy is present in the painting, Raphael broke the allegorical tradition by dividing the painting into two distinct fields consisting of personifications of the several arts and a large number of their exponents. Raphael might have been influenced by a panel by Lorenzo Ghiberti, or by Plato's 'Protagoras' in choosing this arrangement.