Italy: Detail,'The School of Athens', featuring philosophers, Plato (red robe) and Aristotle (blue robe). Others include Socrates (olive robe), Pythagoras (reading book). Raphael (1483 - 1520), painted between 1509–1511 (Apostolic Palace, Vatican City)

'The School of Athens', or Scuola di Atene in Italian, is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

The Stanza della Segnatura was the first of the rooms to be decorated, and 'The School of Athens' the second painting to be finished there, after 'La Disputa', on the opposite wall. The picture has long been seen as Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the High Renaissance.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

David Henley

Credit:

Pictures From History