English: Some of the College's historic plaster casts of Antique, Gothic and Renaissance statues. A project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund among others, is currently underway to research, interpret and conserve the collection which contributed to Edinburgh's past understanding of itself as the 'Athens of the North'.

"The distant view of Athens from the Aegean Sea is extremely like that of Edinburgh from the Firth of Forth, though certainly the latter is considerably superior. There are several points of view on the elevated grounds near Edinburgh, from which the resemblance of the two cities is complete. From Torphin in particular, one of the low heads of the Pentlands immediately above the village of Colinton, the landscape is exactly that of the vicinity of Athens as viewed from the bottom of Mount Anchesmus. Close upon the right, Brilessus is represented by the Mound of Braid; before, in the abrupt and dark mass of the Castle, rises the Acropolis; the hill of Lycabettus, joined to that of the Areopagus, appears in the Calton; in the Firth of Forth we behold the Aegean Sea; in Inchkeith, Aegina; and the hills of Peloponessus are precisely those of the opposite coast of Fife. Nor is the resemblance less striking in the general characteristics of the scene; for, although we cannot exclaim, "These are the groves of the Academy, and that the Sacred Way!" yet, as on the Attic shore, we certainly here behold "a country rich and gay, broke into hills with balmy odours crowned, and joyous vales, mountains and streams, and clustering towns, and monuments of fame, and scenes of glorious deeds, in little bounds." It is, indeed, most remarkable and astonishing that two cities, placed at such a distance from each other, and so different in every political and artificial circumstance, should naturally be so alike." -- Hugh William Williams, landscape painter, Travels in Italy, Greece and the Ionian Islands, 1820