<P> However, as Heinrich Wölfflin observed, "it is quite wrong to attempt interpretations of the School of Athens as an esoteric treatise...The all - important thing was the artistic motive which expressed a physical or spiritual state, and the name of the person was a matter of indifference" in Raphael's time . What is evident is Raphael's artistry in orchestrating a beautiful space, continuous with that of viewers in the Stanza, in which a great variety of human figures, each one expressing "mental states by physical actions," interact, in a "polyphony" unlike anything in earlier art, in the ongoing dialogue of Philosophy . </P> <P> An interpretation of the fresco relating to hidden symmetries of the figures and the star constructed by Bramante was given by Guerino Mazzola and collaborators . </P> <P> The identities of some of the philosophers in the picture, such as Plato and Aristotle, are certain . Beyond that, identifications of Raphael's figures have always been hypothetical . To complicate matters, beginning from Vasari's efforts, some have received multiple identifications, not only as ancients but also as figures contemporary with Raphael . Vasari mentions portraits of the young Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, leaning over Bramante with his hands raised near the bottom right, and Raphael himself . He was writing over 40 years after the painting, and never knew Raphael, but no doubt reflects what was believed in his time . Many other popular identifications of portraits are very dubious . </P> <P> Luitpold Dussler (de) counts among those who can be identified with some certainty: Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, Ptolemy, Zoroaster, Raphael, Sodoma and Diogenes of Sinope . Other identifications he holds to be "more or less speculative". </P>

The school of athens shows portraits of the following artists