The ancient philosopher in Raphael’s School of Athens commonly said to resemble Leonardo da Vinci is Plato.
Plato stands at the center of the fresco beside Aristotle, holding the Timaeus and gesturing upward toward the ideal realm. Art historians and popular guides have traditionally identified his face as a likeness of Leonardo, although the identification is an informed attribution rather than a documented fact. Raphael admired Leonardo and learned from his experiments with composition, perspective, and human expression.
Raphael painted the fresco between 1509 and 1511 for Pope Julius II in the Apostolic Palace’s rooms, now known as the Stanze di Raffaello. The scene gathers philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists from different periods into an imagined classical academy rather than a literal historical meeting.
The central pairing is easy to confuse: Plato is the older, barefoot figure on the left, while Aristotle is the younger figure on the right. Other Renaissance artists are also traditionally represented: Michelangelo is often identified as Heraclitus, and Raphael included a self-portrait near Ptolemy.