The School of Athens 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 the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The picture has long been seen as "Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance".