The School of Athens represents all the greatest mathematicians, philosophers and scientists from classical antiquity gathered together sharing their ideas and learning from each other. These figures all lived at different times, but here they are gathered together  Cloze (1): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDJkJXUwMDFiJXUwMDBhJXUwMDAxJXUwMDE3  one roof.

The two thinkers in the very  Cloze (2): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDNiJXUwMDA2JXUwMDBiJXUwMDFhJXUwMDExJXUwMDE3  , Aristotle (on the  Cloze (3): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDJhJXUwMDFiJXUwMDBlJXUwMDBmJXUwMDFj ) and Plato (on the  Cloze (4): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDM0JXUwMDA5JXUwMDAzJXUwMDEy  , pointing  Cloze (5): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDJkJXUwMDA1 ) have been enormously important to Western thinking generally, and in different ways, their different philosophies were incorporated into Christianity. Plato holds his book called The Timaeus.

Plato points  Cloze (6): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDJkJXUwMDA1  because in his philosophy the changing world that we see Cloze (7): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDM5JXUwMDEzJXUwMDFkJXUwMDFhJXUwMDFiJXUwMDBh us is just a shadow of a higher, truer reality that is eternal and unchanging (and include things like goodness and beauty). For Plato, this otherworldly reality is the ultimate reality, and the seat of all truth, beauty, justice, and wisdom.

Aristotle holds his hand  Cloze (8): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDNjJXUwMDBiJXUwMDE4JXUwMDE5  , because in his philosophy, the only reality is the reality that we can see and experience by sight and touch (exactly the reality dismissed by Plato). Aristotle's Ethics (the book that he holds) "emphasized the relationships, justice, friendship, and government of the human world and the need to study it."

Pythagoras (lower  Cloze (9): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDM0JXUwMDA5JXUwMDAzJXUwMDEy ) believed that the world (including the movement of the planets and stars) operated according to mathematical laws. These mathematical laws were related to ideas of musical and cosmic harmony, and thus (for the Christians who interpreted him in the Renaissance) to God. Pythagoras taught that each of the planets produced a note as it moved, based on its distance from the earth. Together, the movement of all the planets was perfect harmony -- "the harmony of the spheres."

Ptolemy (he has his back to us on the lower  Cloze (10): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDJhJXUwMDFiJXUwMDBlJXUwMDBmJXUwMDFj ), holds a sphere of the earth,  Cloze (11): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDM2JXUwMDBiJXUwMDFkJXUwMDBjJXUwMGQ0JXUwMGQ0JXUwMDFi  him is Zaroaster, who holds a celestial sphere. Ptolemy tried to mathematically explain the movements of the planets (which was not easy since some of them appear to move backwards!). His theory of how they all moved Cloze (12): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDM5JXUwMDEzJXUwMDFkJXUwMDFhJXUwMDFiJXUwMDBh the earth remained the authority until Copernicus and Kepler figured out (in the late 1500s) that the earth was not at the Cloze (13): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDNiJXUwMDA2JXUwMDBiJXUwMDFhJXUwMDExJXUwMDE3 of the universe, and that the planets moved in orbits the shape of ellipses, not in circles.

Raphael included a self-portrait of himself, standing  Cloze (14): undernext tocenteraroundrightleftdownup JXUwMDM2JXUwMDBiJXUwMDFkJXUwMDBjJXUwMGQ0JXUwMGQ0JXUwMDFi  Ptolemy. He looks right out at us.