The Three Philosophers was finished around 1509, and the current name of the work derives from a writing of Marcantonio Michiel, (1484–1552) who saw it just some years after in a Venetian villa.[1] The three figures portrayed are allegorical: an old bearded man, possibly a Greek philosopher; an Arab philosopher; and a sitting young man, enclosed within a natural landscape.[2] In the background is a village with some mountains, the latter marked by a blue area whose meaning is unknown.