Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Commentaria in Aristotelem.

The picture above is part of an image of Saint Thomas Aquinas “confounding” the Muslim philosopher Averroës (Arabic: Ibn Rushd). The whole thing is depicted below. Averroës and Aquinas both studied Aristotle, but Aquinas showed that Aristotle could be reconciled with Christianity. To do this, Aquinas had to correct what he considered to be “misinterpretations” of Aristotle made by Averroës.

In case you’re wondering, that’s Averroës on the floor below Aquinas. Apparently he’s been TKO’ed by Aquinas’ mental powers. Or he may just be sleeping, because he’s so bored. You decide.

Many believe that the hand gestures of Plato and Aristotle (in the center of the painting) denote two ways of doing metaphysics. Plato points to the heavens–Aristotle to the earth. If look closely, Plato is holding a book: Timaeus, one of his most celestial and abstract dialogues. Aristotle is holding his Nichomachean Ethics, a rather terrestrial treatise.

Here are the philosophers featured by Raphael in the Scuola di Atene by number:

1: Zeno of Citium 2: Epicurus 3: Federico II of Mantua? 4: Boethius or Anaximander or Empedocles?

5: Averroes 6: Pythagoras 7: Alcibiades or Alexander the Great? 8: Antisthenes or Xenophon? 9: Hypatia 10: Aeschines or Xenophon?

11: Parmenides? 12: Socrates 13: Heraclitus (as Michelangelo) 14: Plato (as Leonardo da Vinci) 15: Aristotle

16: Diogenes of Sinope? 17: Plotinus? 18: Euclid or Archimedes with students 19: Strabo or Zoroaster? 20: Ptolemy? R: Apelles (as Raphael) 21: Protogenes

For the all the ladies, the only woman to make it into the painting was Hypatia who is located at #9.