Michael Barry, the Patti Cadby Birch Consultative Chairman, Department
of Islamic Art, MMA, presents this examination of the mysterious central
figure in one of the most enigmatic paintings of the Italian
Renaissance, Giorgiones "Three Philosophers" (Venice, 1504). The
discussion of this work, which is now in the Kunsthistoriches Museum in
Vienna, sheds light on the role that Islam and Islamic philosophy played
in late medieval and early Renaissance European perceptions.
