Raphael, Parnassus (Poetry)

Raphael, Parnassus (Poetry)

Date: 1510-11

Location: Apostolic Palace, Vatican City

Commissioned by  Pope Julius II 

Raphael as one of four frescoes in a room called the Stanze di Raffaello.

Stanza della segnatura, the first room that Raphael decorated. 

Four areas of human knowledge: philosophy, religion, poetry and law.

Apollo

• A god depicted as an idealized young beardless, male
• Son of Zeus and Leto, has a twin sister Artemis
• The god of the fine arts (music/poetry)
• He is sitting under a laurel tree playing a lira da braccio (lyre with a head)
• lira da braccio was an instrument played in the Renaissance rather than antiquity

Mount Parnassus

• In Delphi, Greece; a mountain said to house the muses and sacred to Apollo.

Apollo is surrounded by a host of nine muses, nine ancient poets, and nine contemporary poets.

The muses are overseers of various art including: history, comedy, astronomy, lyrical poems, Dancing (lyre), tragedy, sacred poetry, music and general poetry.

Upper left section of Epic poets includes:

Dante (Divine Comedy) 

Homer (Greek epics)

Virgil (Roman epics) 

Statius (Roman epics, in divine comedy) 

Ennius (Father of Roman poetry)

More contemporary poets include: Ludovico Aristo (Renaissance poet-epic about Charlemagne)

Giovanni Boccaccio-Important Renaissance humanist

Francesco Petrarca- The father of renaissance humanism

Many of the Characters identities are uncertain. 

There is only one female poet other than the muses who is holding paper with her name (Sappho) on it. 

Sappho was a lyric poet, popular in ancient Greece (Lesbos) who's writings have since been lost.