The Three Philosophers

The Three Philosophers is a completed around 1505 oil painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Giorgione, which was executed by order of the Venetian nobles Taddeo Contarini.

The current name of the work stems from a font Marcantonio Michiels, who saw it in a Venetian villa. The three figures show clear allegorical traits: a bearded old man, an Arab and a seated young man in a natural landscape. In the background a village is seen surrounded by mountains, the very back of a blue object with unknown significance. The young man looks at a cave on the left side and missed this apparently with a device.

The scholarly world interprets the work differently. According to widespread interpretation of the three men represent not the wise men from the east before the birth grotto of Jesus, but the three stages of human mental life: the Renaissance ( the young man ), Arabia (the man with turban ) and the Middle Ages ( the old man ). Others see instead an allegory of the three ages of man. Still others suspect in relation to the scholarly commitment Contarini astrological and alchemical allusions.

Another interpretation sees, from right to left, the old Pythagoras, Averroes and at the highest level a young Leonardo da Vinci.