Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Raphael was born 28 March, 1483 or 6 April, 1483 in the small but artistically significant Central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region, where his father Giovanni Santi was a court painter to the Duke. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight.

His first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was also named in the commission.

In the center of the fresco, at its architecture's central vanishing point, are the two undisputed main subjects: Plato on the left and Aristotle, his student, on the right.

In the foreground of the fresco are shown (from left to right): Averroes and Pythagoras, Diogenes, Heraclitus and Bramante as Euclid or Archimedes.

In the background of fresco are shown: Alcibiades, Anisthenes, Aeschines, Socrates, Plotinus and Apelles. The building is in the shape of a Greek cross, which some have suggested was intended to show a harmony between pagan philosophy and Christian theology.