New discoveries about papyri of Herculaneum have revealed that the famous Greek philosopher Plato would have been buried in a garden ofAcademy of Athensthe most influential philosophical school of antiquity founded by Plato himself, reserved for the philosopher close to what was known as Museum, sacred chapel to the Muses. The discovery was announced at the National Library of Naples by Graziano Ranocchia of the University of Pisa, papyrologist and head of GreekSchoolsproject financed by CNR. This project made it possible to decipher ten new papyrus fragments pertaining to the History of the Academy Of Philodemus of Gadarawhich mentions the location of the Plato's tomb.
Deciphering the Herculaneum papyri with artificial intelligence: the Vesuvius Challenge project
THE new fragments deciphered works by Philodemus of Gadara have made it possible to add a text to the text known up to now unpublished part equal to 30%. There History of the Academy it is a work composed in the 1st century BC which retraced the stages of the main philosophical currents of antiquity.
Philodemus of Gadara was a Epicurean philosopher Greek-speaking, known to have had a connection with the famous Villa of the Papyri of Herculaneum. The villa contained one of the largest libraries of antiquity that have survived to us, consisting of numerous Greek texts of Epicurean philosophy.
The new details revealed thanks to the work of researchers from the GreekSchools project consist of some news about the life of Plato (428/427-348/347 BC), student of Socrates and among the most influential philosophers in the entire Western history. Plato was the founder ofAcademythe most influential philosophical school of antiquity, closed down by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian (482-565 AD) in 529, after nine centuries of activity.
Plato was traditionally believed to have been sold as slave around 387 BC, returning from his trip to Sicily. The new fragments deciphered from the work of Philodemus of Gadara suggest instead that the philosopher had been sold much earlier, in 404 BC or in 399 BC The location of is also revealed burial: a garden within the complex of the Academy he founded. The philosophical school was based outside the walls of Athensin an area characterized by gardens and groves, including a sacred grove dedicated to the mythological hero Academusfrom which the name came.
