The Parnassus

The Parnassus represents poetry in Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura, completed this around 1511. Apollo plays a lira da braccio (not a classical lyre) surrounded by the nine Muses on Mount Parnassus. Ancient and modern poets gather on both sides.

Homer appears blind, dictating verses. Dante, Virgil, and other poets from antiquity through Raphael's own time populate the slopes. The composition adapts to an awkward wall space around a window, using the architectural feature as the mountain's base. Raphael includes Sappho, the ancient Greek poetess, holding a scroll with her name. The fresco remains in the Vatican Museums.