Apollo sitting on Parnassus surrounded by the muses and famous poets

Apollo sitting on Parnassus surrounded by the muses and famous poets

Marcantonio Raimondi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Raphael's 'Parnassus' in the Vatican is the paradigmatic representation of the subject where Apollo on Parnassus is surrounded by the muses and famous poets, from which all later versions drew inspiration. Since the room in which it was painted, the Stanza della Segnatura (thought to have been the private library of Pope Julius II r. 1503–13) was not publicly accessible until well into the seventeenth century, it was Marcantonio's print that established its canonical status. Numerous differences between the engraving and the completed fresco, however, indicate that the engraving records an early idea for the composition based on a lost drawing by Raphael.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Apollo sitting on Parnassus surrounded by the muses and famous poetsApollo sitting on Parnassus surrounded by the muses and famous poetsApollo sitting on Parnassus surrounded by the muses and famous poetsApollo sitting on Parnassus surrounded by the muses and famous poetsApollo sitting on Parnassus surrounded by the muses and famous poets

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.