The Leadership Lyceum’s roots in the historical tradition of the original Lyceum. While his student Alexander was conquering Asia, Aristotle, at 50 years old established his own school just outside of the Athens city limits in a gymnasium known as the Lyceum. He built a substantial library at the Lyceum and gathered around him a group of brilliant research students, called “peripatetics” from the name of the cloister (peripatos – which can be the ‘act of walking’ or a ‘place for walking’) in which they walked and held their discussions. The philosophy expounded there came to be known as the Peripatetic school allegedly from Aristotle’s style of pacing around while teaching.
Rafael’s “School of Athens” depicted here was painted between 1509 and 1511. It is part of a series of frescoes that Rafael created to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura, one of the rooms in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, under the commission of Pope Julius II. The frescoes in this room, including “The School of Athens,” represent the four branches of human knowledge: Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Law.
At the center of the composition are two of the most significant figures of Western philosophy: Plato and Aristotle. Plato is depicted pointing upwards to the heavens, symbolizing his Theory of Forms, while Aristotle gestures toward the earth, indicating his belief in empirical observation and practical ethics.
