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Because the world clearly needed more Renaissance meets TEDx content, a physicist has decided to decode Raphael’s The School of Athens using equations and lasers. Dr. Silvia Galli, whose PhD is in cosmic rays (yes, really), stars in a new doco where she breaks down the architectural brilliance of the 1509 fresco like it’s a CERN experiment.

It’s highbrow meets high voltage, and somewhere Raphael’s ghost is probably nodding and going, “Finally, someone gets it.” The doc, airing this week on SBS, dives into how ancient artists basically invented vanishing points before Photoshop or Instagram filters were even a twinkle in the universe.

Galli applies geometry, light analysis, and enough physics jargon to make your Year 10 science teacher weep with joy. Spoiler alert: Plato and Aristotle weren’t just standing around looking pensive—they were actually slaying the mathematical alignment game. But the real drama? It turns out Raphael was low-key a spatial genius.

His use of golden ratios, perspective grids, and sneaky symbolism was basically 16th-century quantum flexing. Who knew the Vatican walls doubled as the original chalkboard for a physics masterclass? Latest update: Nerds are thrilled. Art critics are intrigued. Everyone else is just here for the part where someone says “Renaissance” and “quantum field” in the same sentence without combusting.

Sources: SBS On Demand – “Raphael Decoded: The Physics of Art” (24 Apr 2025) The Guardian – “New documentary reimagines Renaissance art through science” (24 Apr 2025)