Rainbird Art - (Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), School of Athens, 1509, Stanza della Segnatura, Pontifical Palace, Rome) (lower left part of larger painting). The School of Athens or "Scuola di Atene" in Italian is one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1510 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms that are 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 after La disputa. The painting celebrates classical thought, but it is also dedicated to the liberal arts, symbolized by the statues of Apollo and Minerva. Grammar, Arithmetic and Music are personified by figures located in the foreground, at left Geometry and Astronomy are personified by the figures in the foreground (other characters symbolised in the painting are those representing Rhetoric and Dialectic. Some of the ancient philosophers bear the features of Raphael's contemporaries. This section shows Pythagoras (crouching with book and Parmenides (standing with book just seen in part on the right).