The Parnassus

The wall over the window in the Stanza della Segnatura — Apollo plays a lira da braccio (a Renaissance instrument, not an ancient lyre) surrounded by the Muses and the poets of antiquity. Homer sings blind on the left, Dante stands in profile with his laurel wreath and hooked nose, Sappho lounges below with her name on a scroll. Raphael integrates the awkward window into the composition by making Parnassus rise around it — the wall's problem becomes the picture's structure.