Vatican Museum (5986706589)

Apollo sits at the summit of Mount Parnassus playing a lira da braccio, surrounded by the nine Muses and eighteen famous poets from antiquity and the Renaissance. To the left, the blind Homer recites poetry while Dante and Virgil look on; in the lower-left foreground, the poetess Sappho holds a scroll. The scene is famously composed within a lunette that arches over a window, integrating the painted figures into the physical architecture of the room.

This work embodies the Renaissance Neoplatonic concept of 'furor divinus' (divine frenzy), illustrating how poetic and musical inspiration serves as a bridge between the human and the divine. Within the larger decorative program of the room, it represents Beauty and Truth reached through the arts, harmonizing classical mythology with the Christian humanism of the Papal court.