On March 21, 2024, the students of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Gymnázium Myjava and Universitatea Crestina Partium could experience connection of art and philosophy during the third of the four COIL online lessons of the Erasmus+ international project, entitled Great Paintings in Detail: The School of Athens, organised by Gymnázium Myjava, and led by Mgr. Ľubica Durcová,

During this session, to the knowledge of Art, Culture, History and Aesthetics, also Philosophy was added as a part of Civic Education.

As the first, students worked in groups and debated and shared their ideas and opinions about one of the most famous artistic works of the High Italian Renaissance period, the School of Athens by Raphael, and then present the discussed to the whole class.

How do we know who is who in an imaginary gathering of classical philosophers and scholars of the School of Athens? Is a portrait of the painter himself included in the painting? How one gesture can summarise the main ideas of Plato and Aristotle´s philosophies? What can be used as evidence to identify Heraclitus, Diogenes, Euclid, Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Ptolemy and Socrates? Why Plato looks like Leonardo da Vinci and Heraclitus looks like Michelangelo? How architecture of the great architect Donato Bramante influenced Raphael´s composition of the painting? What is technique behind fresco painting? These questions and many more were answered in the analyses of Raphael´s masterpiece the School of Athens.

After the analyses, the students got opportunity to talk, discuss and express their opinion about the painting and its connection to the history of philosophical thought.

The students were very active in working groups and showed a great insight in depth of the ideas they presented.

While the university students were partially familiar with the philosophy of discussed philosophers, the most of the secondary students, apart from recognising the names, didn´t know much about mentioned philosophical theories.