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Decor
The interiors of our cafe restaurants pay tribute to the Renaissance period yet offer our restaurant guests a retreat of sumptuous atmosphere, sensual delight, comfort and affordable dining. The attentions to detail along with our visual enhancements have become extremely well received keeping us on the leading edge of the restaurant cafe experience.
The Symposium Cafés' restaurant interiors pay tribute to the Renaissance period and fascinate our dining patrons, franchisees and restaurant managers daily. The quality of workmanship, attention to detail and consistent image in both our corporate and franchised cafe locations ensure a solid, reputable profile.
Raphael’s famous "School of Athens" fresco serves as our visual centerpiece in each of our restaurants and is our guiding ideal. The fresco depicts a gathering of philosophers and their contemporaries exchanging ideas.
The Symposium Cafés are the modern – day version of gathering places and our concept delivers in every way. Each of our restaurants is decorated with several different pieces from the same period; creating conversation by customers during their dining experience at The Symposium Café.
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School of Athens
Raphael, 1510-1511, Fresco, 8m x 5.5m.
Plato and Aristotle, the two great philosophers of the classical world are central to this piece. |
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Alexander the Great
King of Macedonia and a pupil of Aristotle, Alexander is seen here listening attentively to Socrates. |
Apollo and Minerva
Raphael included these two figures to emphasize the schools of thought represented by Aristotle
and Plato. |
Pythagoras
The renowned mathematician, Pythagoras, embodies arithmetic
and music. |
Aristotle and Plato
Reflecting two schools of thought, these philosophers share a world of provocative and debatable theories. |
Diogenes the Dog
A cynic, who hated worldly possessions and lived in a barrel, Diogenes' attitude is best summed up in relaying this story. |
Raphael
This was Raphael's creative way of connecting the past and present, and of paying tribute to the great men
of his day. |
Epicurus
This philosopher taught that happiness lay in the pursuit of pleasures of the mind. |
Heraclitus
This lonely character, who was not in Raphael's preliminary drawings, represents the melancholy philosopher, Heraclitus, who it was said wept for
human folly. |
The Parnassus
The painting shows the mythological Mount Parnassus where Apollo resides. He is surrounded by the nine muses, nine poets from antiquity, and nine contemporary poets. |
Primavera
Also known as "Allegory of Spring". The history of the painting is not certainly known, though it seems to have been commissioned by one of the Medici family. It contains elements of Ovid and Lucretius and may have been inspired by a poem
by Poliziano. |
The Birth of Venus
It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a full grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore. The painting is held in the Uffizi Gallery
in Florence. |
Fire in the Borgo
The Fire in the Borgo shows an event that is documented in the Liber Pontificalis: a fire that broke out in the Borgo in Rome in 847 CE. According to legend, Pope Leo IV contained the fire with his benediction. |
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