Why it matters
Apollo plays among the nine Muses on Mount Parnassus, surrounded by poets from antiquity and Raphael's own time. It represents poetry in the Stanza della Segnatura, whose walls show the four areas of human knowledge.
Did you know?
- Apollo plays a contemporary lira da braccio rather than a classical lyre.
- Homer's face is based on the Laocoön, excavated in 1506.
- Sappho is the only female poet shown, identified by name on a scroll.
- It was painted between 1509 and 1511.
Based on the Wikipedia article The Parnassus (CC BY-SA 4.0).
