h
her, also, are some truly beautiful little boys. In another
medallion, on the side towards the window that looks over the
Belvedere, is a figure of Poetry, who is in the form of Polyhymnia,
crowned with laurel, and holds an antique musical instrument in one
hand, and a book in the other, and has her legs crossed. With a more
than human beauty of expression in her countenance, she stands with
her eyes uplifted towards Heaven, accompanied by two little boys,
who are lively and spirited, and who make a group of beautiful
variety both with her and with the others. On this side, over the
aforesaid window, Raffaello afterwards painted Mount Parnassus. In
the third medallion, which is above the scene where the Holy Doctors
are ordaining the Mass, is a figure of Theology, no less beautiful
than the others, with books and other things round her, and likewise
accompanied by little boys. And in the fourth medallion, over the
other window, which looks out on the court, he painted Justice with
her scales, and her sword uplifted, and with the same little boys
that are with the others; of which the effect is supremely
beautiful, for in the scene on the wall below he depicted the giving
of the Civil and the Canon Law, as we will relate in the proper
place.

In like manner, on the same ceiling, in the angles of the
pendentives, he executed four scenes which he drew and coloured with
great diligence, but with figures of no great size. In one of these,
that near the Theology, he painted the Sin of Adam, the eating of
the apple, which he executed with a most delicate manner; and in the
second, near the Astrology, is a figure of that science setting the
fixed stars and planets in their places. In the next, that belonging
to Mount Parnassus, is Marsyas, whom Apollo has caused to be bound
to a tree and flayed; and on the side of the scene wherein the
Decretals are given, there is the Judgment of Solomon, showing him
proposing to have the child cut in half. These four scenes are all
full of expression and feeling, and executed with excellent
draughtsmanship, and with pleasing and gracious colouring.

But now, having finished with the vaulting--that is, the ceiling--of
that apartment, it remains for us to describe what he painted below
the things mentioned above, wall by wall. On the wall towards the
Belvedere, where there are Mount Parnassus and the Fount of Helicon,
he made round that mount a laurel wood of darkest shadows, in the
verdu