panying diagram, all the figures in the
composition can be made out.

As it is an imaginary scene, Raphael was free to bring together poets
of different ages and countries, grouping them by the natural
association of one with another. In this mythic realm time and space
are as nothing, and the poets are united in the higher fellowship of
the inspired imagination.

[Illustration: KEY TO PARNASSUS
1. Apollo 2. Calliope 3. Polymnia 4. Clio 5. Erato 6. Terpsichore
7. Euterpe 8. Thalia 9. Urania 10. Melpomene 11. Unknown 12. Virgil
13. Homer 14. Dante 15. Scribe 16. Berni 17. Petrarch 18. Corinna
19. Alcaeus 20. Sappho 21. Plautus 22. Terence 23. Ovid 24. Sannazzaro
25. Cornelius Gallus 26. Anacreon 27. Horace 28. Pindar]

It is interesting to note how the painter has brought them together.
Apollo, of course, as the god of poetry and music, occupies the
central position, seated beneath some laurel trees, near the sacred
fountain of Hippocrene, with the nine Muses circling about him. Apollo
is always spoken of as playing the lyre, but Raphael gives him a
violin, because the action in playing that instrument is so graceful.
Some think also he meant to pay a compliment to a famous violinist of
that day.

Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, rests for a moment the long trumpet
whose epic strains are wont to stir the courage of men. Polymnia, the
muse of sacred poetry, leans upon the lyre whose vibrant strings
thrill the gentler emotions of faith and love.

Blind old Homer advances chanting the adventures of the Greek heroes,
and an eager youth writes down the verses. Behind him are Virgil and
Dante, and Virgil seems to be calling on Dante to listen to Apollo.

Another group shows Pindar, a very aged figure, reciting his
impassioned odes to Horace and another poet, who listen with
admiration. Plautus and Terence, two writers of Latin comedy, walk
together in pleasant companionship.

It was not an easy matter to dispose of the many figures and groups in
a space cut into, as this wall is, by a window, but how free and how
natural is the arrangement! It was among the first great paintings
which Raphael executed in the Vatican, and the grace and harmony which
mark his later works are here shown.

The picture is interesting also as another illustration of the great
revival of learning which took place in Raphael's day. The old
literature of Greece and Rome had been rediscovered. For centuries it
had lain like a buried city, f