The painting "Athens Academy" (1510 ~1511) is based on the Athens Academy built by Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, and takes seven ancient liberal arts, namely grammar, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy. The artist tried to express his longing for a better future by recalling the "golden age" in history.

Its theme is to worship the Greek spirit and pursue the highest ideal of life, which is the long-cherished wish of humanistic artists themselves. The whole painting is set in a tall building arch, and the hall is filled with famous scholars from different times, regions and schools, as well as former thinkers and contemporary celebrities. They are discussing freely, and their emotions are warm, as if they are holding a ceremony or celebrating a grand festival, filled with the atmosphere of a hundred schools of thought contending and condensing the essence of human wisdom. This building is obviously modeled after St Peter's Cathedral designed by bramante. In the niches on both sides, there are statues of Athena, the goddess of wisdom (right) and Apollo, the god of music (left). The arch in the center of the perspective point leads directly to the distant horizon, which is an extremely sacred environment. Scholars are arranged symmetrically, naturally and rhythmically on both sides of the steps, and the characters on the upper steps are lined up. In the middle are two great scholars-Plato and Aristotle. As they walked towards the audience, they seemed to be arguing fiercely. Aristotle stretched out his right hand, palm down, as if to explain: the real world is his research topic; On the other hand, Plato pointed his right hand upward, indicating that everything was inspired by the gods. These two opposing postures express their ideological differences in principle. The rest of the people, some staring at the moon, some watching, some listening to the conversation between the two old people, naturally formed several groups. Now let's introduce the people on the upper steps: beside Plato on the upper left, an old man with a beard is immersed in thinking. Socrates has just turned to explaining ethical arguments to others. The fifth person from left to right is a young soldier named Alsi Bydes. Behind him, a man is greeting two young people coming. At Aristotle's side at the top right, two young people are leaning against the base of the niche wall. One is writing, the other is thinking, and the other is standing alone. These three people are opposite to the group on the left. On the left side below the steps, centered on Pythagoras, a mathematician who is sitting on the ground and writing intently, a teenager is holding a' wooden sign' for him, which reads a "harmonious" number scale diagram. Behind him, an old man is recording the number of Pythagoras' arguments. The scholar behind him with a neck stretched out and a white scarf wrapped around his head is the Muslim scholar Aviloy. A little further behind, there is a man wearing a laurel crown and standing on the pedestal with his chest out. He is the master of grammar, Epicurus. The scholar standing in front of Pythagoras and pointing to the sentences in the book is the rhetorician Saint-Nock Leites. Among them, there is a blond young man in a white cloak. He has a delicate face and a grim expression. He is regarded as Francesco de la Roffe, the future archduke of Ullbin. In the group on the right under the steps, the central figure is the geometer Euclid (Archimedes). He bends down, holds a compass in his hand, and tells the students calculus on the blackboard, surrounded by his four students. These four people seem to have different understandings of the teacher's explanation. The man next to him, wearing an ancient yellow robe, wearing a crown of honor and holding astronomical instruments, is an Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy. Opposite Ptolemy, bramante, a fellow countryman of the painter Raphael (an old man with a beard), is the painter Sodoma on the edge, and the young man with half his head exposed and a dark round hat is the painter Raphael himself. Painting himself as a historical theme was the painter's favorite expression at that time, but Raphael left himself too little space. On the central step of this painting lies a lonely and cynical philosopher, diogenes. The scholar thinks that everything except natural needs, including social life and cultural life, is insignificant, so he usually wears rags and lives in a wooden box. This figure played a role in filling the gap in composition. He came into contact with two people walking on the steps on the right, and at the same time resonated with Heraclitus, a scholar leaning against the stone table in the lower left corner. The image of Heraclitus is lonely. Although people think that Raphael is incompatible with Michelangelo's personality, they admire his works and use them as a model to create. Plato's head is modeled after Leonardo da Vinci. The color treatment of this painting is also very harmonious. The architectural background is all ivory marble structure, and the costumes of the characters are interwoven with red, white, yellow, purple and ochre. The perspective method has a high level, which not only enhances the sense of space of the picture, but also makes the pattern of the ground and the geometric decoration structure of the vault accurate enough to be calculated mathematically. 1, the boy in white with his arms crossed on the left is Alexander, king of Macedonia, Greece;

2. On the right side of Alexander (the left end of the picture), an old man with a bald head and a yellow beard, wearing a purple robe, faced the audience and listened attentively, as if lost in thought. On the right of the old man (the left of the picture) is Socrates, an ancient philosopher. He wears a light green robe and leans over to exchange views with four young people.

Among the four interlocutors, Socrates met a young officer with armor and helmet. His name is Alsi Biades, and he seems to be listening carefully to Socrates' teachings. Behind the officer, a man waved to the two people on the left of the picture to listen to the philosopher's speech quickly; 4. Close to Aristotle are five scholars and an old man in a yellow robe, who are listening to the debate of two great philosophers;

Behind the old man, two young people are coming to listen to the discussion of two philosophers;

There are three young people under the corner of the painting niche. The young man on the left looked at the middle and listened to the philosopher's speech. The young man in the middle sat in the corner to record, and the young man on the right leaned against the wall to meditate.

Next to the contemplative youth is an old man with white hair and beard. He is the famous Stoic philosopher Zhi Nuo. The old man wore a crimson cloak, alone, immersed in thinking;

8. There are three people on Zhi Nuo's left (the right of the picture). They have different expressions. Researchers believe that one of them is Zoroaster, the founder of ancient Persia;

The characters at the lower level are divided into left and right groups, including famous historical figures and realistic figures at that time. In the left group:

9. The old man standing and looking left is the famous Arab scholar Aviloy;

10. Behind Aviloy is Epicurus, an outstanding ancient philosopher. Wearing a laurel crown, he is leaning against a cylindrical base to read.

1 1. The bald old man reading in front of Aviloy is the famous ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras;

12, the scholar standing in front of Pythagoras is a rhetorician Saint Nock Leites, who is wearing a yellow coat and a purple robe and is looking back at the mathematician's question.

13, Pythagoras has a bald old man under his right hand, squinting and taking notes while watching mathematicians do problems;

14, behind the rhetorician St. Nock Leites is a blond young man with a handsome face and profound thoughts. This young man is the nephew of the Pope and a famous literary lover, Duke of Ullbin Francesco de la Roffe; 15, four young people surrounded the ancient mathematician Archimedes (Euclid), watching him draw geometric figures on the blackboard with a compass in his hand;

16, Archimedes is next to Ptolemy, the founder of the geocentric theory of Egyptian astronomers. He wore a crown of honor, a yellow robe and a heavenly coat.

17, opposite Ptolemy is the great architect bramante;

18, on the far right of the picture is Raphael's friend, the famous painter Sodoma;

19, between Sodom and Ptolemy is Raphael, wearing a hat without a brim and staring at the audience; 20. The half-naked old man lying on the steps is the ancient Greek cynic philosopher diogenes;

2 1, sitting on the steps, leaning on the box to meditate is Heraclitus, an outstanding philosopher in ancient Greece, who was the first outstanding representative in the West to put forward simple dialectics and materialism.