What Zoroaster was doing amid philosophers
of a later age in The School of Athens
Farrokh Vajifdar
What is the Sage of Ancient Iran, Zarathushtra — prophet to some, preceptor to others — of circa 1000 BCE doing amidst a motley "western” crowd of mostly male elders from much later epochs in the Raffaello (Sanzio da Urbino Raphael) mural popularly known as The School of Athens? Shown as holding aloft a luminous blue-grey sphere Zoroaster had obviously never met the others in person. A multi-faceted story opens up the moment the main figures are identified, with plots and sub-plots to sustain them.
The actual fresco, measuring some 25 x 17 ft (approx. 8 x 5 metres) was conceptualized......