The Parnassus

This 19th-century photograph captures Raphael’s fresco from the Vatican’s Stanza della Segnatura. At the center of a grassy hilltop, Apollo sits beneath laurel trees performing music while the Muses and famous writers like Homer, Virgil, and Dante gather in a balanced, semicircular assembly. The work is designed to fit around a window frame, creating a sense that the mythical mountain exists within the architecture of the room.

The fresco embodies the Renaissance Neoplatonic concept of 'divine frenzy' (furor divinus), a theory championed by Marsilio Ficino which viewed poetic inspiration as a path to spiritual truth. As part of the Stanza della Segnatura, it serves as the visual representation of Poetry, standing in balance with Philosophy (The School of Athens) and Theology (Disputation of the Holy Sacrament).