Between 1509 and 1511 Raphael painted a single wall in a small library on the second floor of the Apostolic Palace in Rome. The picture, known as the School of Athens, gathers around fifty philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers under a colossal vaulted hall. Several of them are portraits of Raphael's contemporaries. The picture is the visual definition of High Renaissance Rome and a private joke between three of the greatest artists of the period.