Sappho, Apollo, neopythagorean theory and 'Numine' afflatur in Raphael's fresco of the Parnassus

(EMA - AT . (493 SAPPHO, APOLLO, NEOPYTHAGOREAN THEORY, 1536 CTLG., AND NUMINE AFFLATUR IN RAPHAEL’S FRESCO OF THE PARNASSUS G N VA BY CHRISTIANE L. JOOST-GAUGIER AINTED by Raphael in 1510 for the Stanza the painting who form a narrative communication della fresco between antique and contemporary poets selected (fig. 1) well deserves all the attention it to be honored in this painting”. Yet the precise has so far received from scholars'. Its identities of many of the personalities who inhabit this fresco are still uncertain. There is nothing composition, Segnatura, which has the been Parnassus much discussed since Vasari's time, clearly was an ingenious one surprising about in transforming the dark, narrow wall of the north series of uomini famosi, or famous men, who histhis difficulty. Unlike many side of this chamber -using the unfortunate cirtorically were separately represented and separcumstance of the presence of a window in the cenately identified with tituli (or inscriptions) both ter of the wall in building the in classical art and in Renaissance art, the figures mountainous landscape - into a resplendent clasto advantage of the Parnassus mingle with one another, simulsical re-creation which not only marks Raphael's taneously conducting conversation, experiencing maturity of style in Rome but also his maturity inspiration, listening to the music of the various as a landscape painter. Scholars have studied and instruments represented, and singing in the hardebated antique models for the various figures in monizing spaciousness of a sylvan mountain set-

ting. Only one figure carries a titulus, and that first audience, anyone might mistake her identity. figure inhabitant not only Thus her significance for the iconography. as well (aside from the mythological Muses) of the Paras for the design, is made concomitant and exnassus, plicit. Her presence is unmistakably important. is the only female but of the entire chamber. This is not, however, the reason why she holds aloft, above her left shoulder, a scroll clearly indicating to the beholder that she is SAPPHO (fig. 2). The use of the Latin, rather than the contemporary Italian (Saffo), spelling of the name of this ancient Greek poetess announces the distinctly classical climate into which the beholder is invited. Though many scholars have acknowledged a classical flavor. or accent, in this painting seen, in the case of this figure, in the amplitude of form and the complex dignity of posture’, this important observation has been accompanied by a distinct reticence to study the archaeological implications of her presence and presentation in The object of the paragraphs that follow will this scene. While Apollo and the Muses are apbe to assess the full meaning of this peculiarity propriate inhabitants of this lofty mountain sumin terms of the relation of Sappho, as the only mit which, secondarily to Mount Helicon, was figure who Raphael was careful to identify, to the associated with the worship of Apollo and the Muses throughout the history of Greek literature, Sappho is not shown on its rounded verdant hillside, but, rather, at its base. This is appropriate, since no passage in classical literature connects her with this locale. setting and to the other figures in the fresco, as well as to the rest of the chamber in general, a matter which has not until now been considered. Since Pope Julius II, the patron of this elegant and erudite stanza, which was originally designed as his private library’, did not read Greek, nor did he own any examples of Greek poetry among the volumes in his collection“, the puzzle might seem all the more intriguing. Raphael was careful to define this famous mountain, known through the work of the Greek geographer Strabo and the Natural History of Pliny the Elder, both works which Julius owned Though it would be useful to survey the history in his library, as luxuriant with laurel trees®. A of the design of this painting as well as the history of its criticism, this essay will refrain from the stream that gushes from the base of the trees where Apollo has rested his left foot and trickles temptation to repeat established information about down into the lower right regions of the hillside this presenting a new interpretation of the significance may represent the Castalian Spring, named after a nymph pursued by Apollo, who threw herself of the figure of Sappho in order to determine what into this spring on Mount Parnassus”. The spring fresco and will, instead, concentrate on may have been her role in the meaning of the was held sacred, in popular belief, to Apollo and ideal intellectual world projected by the adornthe Muses. It is also possible that the penetrating ment of this grand classical chamber. Never before represented, to our knowledge, in series of uomini famosi or donne illustri in Italian art“, the presence of Sappho in the single scene dedicated to the art of poetry is all the more curious since this previously unknown heroine is endowed with a major role in the design as the one who introduces the beholder into the scene, cursively beguiling him through the torsion of her movement, to enter and ascend into the rarified world of Mount Parnassus. The identifying scroll heralding her presence precludes the possibility that, even among the initiated who formed her space of the window itself suggests the Corcian Cave, according to Strabo and Pausanias the best known and most beautiful cave of Mount Parnassus, another of the sacred sites on this sacred mountain!®. However the choice of Mount Parnassus, rather than Mount Helicon, for the site of this painting may signal the influence of another work which, well known in medieval manuscript tradition, had just received its first printing by the Aldine press in Venice in 1504. In the second Homeric Hymn, the Hymn to Pythian Apollo, Telphusa advised Apollo to build an altar on Parnassus. Shortly thereafter Apollo

found himself on a beautiful mountain ridge of above. Fitting also is the instrument she lovingly this mountain, well beneath the snows of its a hollow, caresses, which assumes an important role in the composition not only for its form, which echoes that of its possessor, but also for the peculiarity gently flowing of its shape. wide and curved, with an animal horn jagged twin peaks. Below an overhanging cliff, the softly rugged curving glade. ridge Nearby contained was a spring, where Apollo killed the crue] she-dragon serving as its topmost part -the part designed to Typhaon, who was a plague to men. Following be held in one hand allowing for the freedom of this event, Apollo, according to the hymn, made the other to pluck its strings. The instrument, a for himself an altar in a wooded grove by the lyre, clearly signifies Sappho's role as the most clear-flowing stream which had been humbled by important lyric poetess of ancient Greece. himself. He then led his followers, singing and The connection between the lyre and lyric playing the lyre he held in his hands, to the soft poetry lies in the history of the lyre as the most ridge below Parnassus, which was “the lovely ancient instrument of Greece, an instrument beplace where they were to dwell honoured by many lieved to have been invented to provide musical men. There Apollo brought them and showed them accompaniment to songs!>. Two antique sources, his most holy sanctuary and rich temple». both of which were known in Renaissance times, Poised at the entrance discuss the to the verdant earthly invention of the lyre. The fourth glade, Sappho, because she was known as the Homeric Hymn, the Hymn to Hermes, contains an Tenth Muse through the words of Plato!?, is not eloquent passage describing the making of the inappropriate company to the assembly of great first lyre from the back of a tortoise, and the shaping poets represented in the presence of Apollo and of its gut into strings. Early versions of this inthe Muses in this high and sacred terrain. strument were made. as well, using horns and antlers Widely known as the first poetess in Greek and Roman literature in works that played a vital role in defining classical antiquity to the learned of the early Cinquecento, and as the inventor, or one of the inventors, of lyric poetry, Sappho must in the frame, and, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus specifies, ivory!”. While according to the Hymn to Hermes, it was Hermes who planned and made the first lyre, an invention which he later amicably shared with Apollo. Pausanias presents evihave been better known to Roman humanists in the court of Julius than she had been in the 13th century, when her name does not appear in the list of Greek poets known to Vincent of Beauvais. Though he does not name her, Petrarch was the first to describe her to late medieval audiences, in his Tenth Eclogue; this entry suggests he had little information beyond the fact that she was a wise young woman". Little more is available from his friend, Domenico Bandini d’ Arezzo who, in the vast encyclopedia he authored (now in the Biblioteca Laurenziana), says that she wrote about love, citing Ovid as his only source!*. As the first poetess and as the first, or one of the first, practitioners of lyric poetry, the early position of Sappho, who lived in the 7th or 6th century B.C., at the beginning of this new art appears to be symbolized by her position as introductress to the lofty landscape scene that rises Fic. 2. — RAPHAEL. Parnassus, detail showing Sappho. Photo Alinari.

scribes a bronze statue on Helicon representing originally the number of its strings was three. as the instrument developed their number was indence that would dispute this claim for he de- Apollo fighting with Hermes for the lyre'*. Plucreased to four and, gradually. to more until in tarch. on the other hand, in his essay On Music, about informs us that this invention, which he traces to brought to seven, the most remote times of antiquity, was an invenknown in Roman versions of the instrument. Later tion of the god Apollo himself. an Sth century the B.C. the number was same number that was invention versions are thought to have occasionally had as which he says was commemorated in his time many as nine. eleven. and even twelve strings”. through surviving hymns and sculptures!”. Plu- Not only was the significance of the different tarch names as his sources for this information kinds of lyre. of which the Boetian (cithara) and Aristoxenus, Dionysius lambus, and Pindar. While Aeolian (or “Asian”) appear to be the oldest, notindeed Pindar praises the “golden” lyre of Apollo able for Plutarch who treats them as separate inand the Muses, he in fact says that Apollo and struments”®, but it may well be important for the the Muses ‘owned’ lyres and that they made joyful fresco of the Parnassus. music from this instrument to accompany singing and dancing”. Citing Alexander’s Notices on «4 the Phrygia, Plutarch mentions the theory that Orpheus was the first singer to the lyre. Not only, he adds, did Apollo invent the lyre, but also the flute: “I on the other hand, have learned that the in- The Aeolian lyre, which was distinguished by its larger, strings graceful, were curved plucked with shape and the fingers, whose was preferred, according to Duris of Samos, Plutarch, and Horace. by musicians from the island of Lesbos in the northern territory of Greece. close to ventor of the blessings of music was not a man, the western coast of Asia Minor, where it was debut one graced with every virtue, the god Apollo... veloped””. Since Sappho came from Lesbos, her the god is the inventor both of the music of the instrument, as noted by Horace and others, was aulos [the flute] and the cithara [the lyre]'"*!. the Aeolian lyre, which came also to be known Plutarch is careful, however, to specify that singing to the accompaniment of the lyre preceded the use of the flute for this purpose.?? Relying on Glaucus' On the Ancient Poets and Musicians, Plutarch names Terpander as the first ancient mortal to sing to the accompaniment of the lyre. while, relying on Duris of Samos and Aristoxenus, he credits Sappho with being the first to invent the Mixolydian, or “tragic” (passionate) mode of accompanying poems with the music of the lyre’. The significance of Sappho by its Latin name barbiton or barbitos”®. The Boetian lyre, or cithara. came, on the other hand. to be known as the instrument of Apollo. This instrument, which underwent a variety of modifications in its form, eventually being carved of wood, was characterized by the fact that it was held by one arm while the other played its strings not with the fingers but with a long thin quill known by the Latin term pecten. or the English plectrum, the ancestor of the bow. Though this instrument is known in vase painting from the 6th in this regard is heightened by Pausanias' comments that Hesiod was unable to learn to play this century B.C. as Apollo’s instrument, gradually, in instrument in order to accompany his singing and a fresco painting from Pompei informs us”. Homer, though he had learned to play it, was unable to do so after losing his sight?*. its later forms, it came to be used by mortals as Though the instrument played by Apollo in the Parnassus fresco is played with a bow, it is not Little is known about the relation of the architecture of the early lyre in relation to the producentirely comprehensible as a violin which, detion brought into existence until the later 16th century, of sound. However it is known, largely veloped as a smaller form of the viola, was not through vase paintings, that a bridge or yoke over about which the strings were mounted was characteristic painted by to the many forms of the ancient lyre. Though played by Apollo has seven strings, rather than a half century Raphaei?°. after the Parnassus was Indeed, the instrument

graving by Marcantonio Raimondi (fig. 3). where the type of lyre was not appropriate, to the final painting, where Apollo plays his seven-stringed instrument with a bow, appears to reflect a yearning for archaeologtcal precision that can only have been imparted to him by a learned humanist informer. It is not unlikely that this change reflects new information that came to be available to him during the execution of the fresco. Early Cinquecento humanists had good reason to be interested in Apollo who was well known to them not only as the most famous god of anFIG. 3. - Marcantonio RAIMONDI. Parnassus, engraving, detail tiquity but also as the patron of libraries. His imshowing Apollo playing the lyre. Washington, D.C., National portance in the Stanza della Segnatura is signaled Gallery of Art. Photo museum. by the fact that he is represented three times, the four of the future violin. A preferred instrument in Italy, where the great interest in archaeology prevailing, in the late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento regarded it as a descendant of the ancient Greek lyre, the lira da braccio was well known in Renaissance times*!. The descendant of an older medieval form known by its Latin name, fidula. which was at first played with a plectrum which later came to be substituted by the bow. this instrument appears to have demore often than any other character in the chamber: in the Parnassus as the god not only of poetry but also of music: in the ceiling, where he appears in a scene with Marsyas (which will be discussed below); and in the large fresco representing the School of Athens. where he is prominent as a sculpture in the avenue of uomini famosi that lines the architecture. Interest in Sappho, however, required greater erudition. Though Sappho is mentioned by Heroveloped from the lira ad arco, or the lyre played dotus, Plato, the so-called Longinus, Demetrius of with a plectrum, the instrument of Apollo known Tarsus. Strabo (who cites her as the greatest of to Plutarch as the cithara. Raphael had ample ocall women poets), Pausanias, Horace, Cicero, and casion to know the lira da braccio for not only others who had high regard for her wisdom and was her use of language, and imitated by Catullus”, it depicted among the decorations of the ducal palace at Urbino, but it was also the favorite her reputation began to change in the hands of instrument of Leonardo da Vinci as well as of Ra- Ovid. phael's own teacher, Timoteo Viti, as we are inlarized an old legend, first mentioned by Strabo, formed by Vasari**. concerning Sappho’s love for Phaon. According In the Heroides this Roman poet popu- In this light, it appears that not only did Rato this story, Sappho threw herself over a cliff as phael have a specific model from which to work a result of her disappointment in the affair”®. Writbut, further, that he was attempting to carefully ing somewhat later, Plutarch disregards this legdistinguish between the different kinds of lyre in end in the many praises he bestows on the most his execution of the Parnassus, allowing Sappho renowned poetess of antiquity in the Moralia. Not to be accompanied by the Aeolian lyre on which, only according to Horace, she “complained”, while tragic (or passionate) lyrical at the same time giving to Apollo his proper in- Music, one of the group of essays which, separstrument, as Italians knew it, the lira da braccio. ately known throughout late medieval times, is is Sappho discussed as the inventress of music in the On The fact that, as some scholars have noted**, Ranow contained in the Moralia, Plutarch also frephael changed the instrument of Apollo from the quently quotes from her verses?’. Because Plufirst project for the design, known through an entarch’s work was known to Renaissance scholars,

“Sappho: A Lesbian Ivric poetess of the 42nd Olympiad in the time of Alceus and Stesichorus. As brothers she had laricus. Charazus, and Eurichus. Her husband was Cercyla. a very wealthy man from Andros, by whom she had a daughter named Clis. She wrote nine books of lyrics. She was the first [woman] to play the lyre. In addition, she wrote epigrams, elegies, iambs, and monads. They say there was another woman, also a Lesbian, another player on the lyre, who because of love for Phaon. a young man, wrote verses and threw herself down headlong from a cliff. According to Suidas. Some think they are the same woman. Plato writes that Sappho was the wise daughter of Scamandronymus. But Aelian says that Sappho on Lesbos was not a poet, but a well known prostitute", Fic. 4. - RAPHAEL. Poetry. Vatican, Stanza deila Segnatura. The fact that this encyclopedia, which also Photo Musei Vaticani, archivio fotografico. notes Parnassus as the home of the Muses*, was dedicated to Julius II, in whose curia its author her work was known, at least in this fragmentary served, and that among the close humanist friends form presented by Plutarch, to Renaissance huof Maffei was Tommaso Inghirami, the librarian manists. Evidence that Marsilio Ficino knew Sapof the Pontiff. suggests that this information was pho’s verses is presented in his Commentaria on well known at the papal court at the time of the Plato's Symposium*®. planning of the Stanza della Segnatura. Not men- These humanists had more specific reason to become interested in Sappho, for their curiosity was surely stimulated by a Commentary on the Ovidian letter which forms the account provided tioned by Maffei, but well known to Inghirami, who authored a commentary on Horace's Ars Poetica and maintained a keen interest in Horace, was the fact that Sappho played the Aeolian lyre*. in the Heroides authored in 1481 by Angelo Poli- The importance of the lyre in the Stanza della ziano?”. While the “epistola” that stimulated Poli- Segnatura is not limited to Sappho and Apollo of ziano has been questioned as spurious by some the Parnassus. One of the poets who stands, seen later authors, the study of Domenico Comparetti from the back, near Sappho, holds a simple vereliminated the doubts connected with it and sion of this instrument, which he plucks, while showed it to be the same letter that Ovid himself one of the Muses in the company of Apollo holds said, elsewhere, that he had composed*®. That a more elaborate variant. Apollo himself, in the considerable discussion must have been provoked painted statue dedicated to him in the School of at the time as a result of the commentary of Poli- Athens, painted just previously to the Parnassus, ziano is suggested by the fact that not all humanholds a lyre similar to the one that was at first ists accepted the Ovidian story. Particularly given to him in the Parnassus. The fact that the interesting, in this respect, is the brief biography supervising personality in the ceiling above, the of Sappho that appeared in Rome in 1506, the personification of Poetry (fig. 4), holds as well year before the Stanza della Segnatura was presan elegant lyre of yet another design shows not umably conceived. In the great humanist encycloonly that Raphael was made aware of the different pedia kinds of lyre and appears to have taken interest of Raffaello Maffei, the Commentaria Urbana, the entry under “Sappho” reads: in their variants, but that poetry and music are,

as suggested by the history of this instrument. intricately connected to each other. This point was well made by Aristotle in Chapter | of his Art of Poetry and by Horace, who in the Ars Poetica referred to Apollo as the god of singers”. It was clearly reflected by Inghirami in the little codex on poetry mentioned above”. In discussing the structure and content of poetry. Inghirami stresses the importance of the style of language -its sound. rhythm, melodiousness, disctpline. and variation- which in turn enhances its intended imagery*®. Surely this attitude is reflected in the ‘musicality’ of the pose of Sappho, whose richly rounded plastic suppleness translates into a composition of subtle contrapuntal rhythmic sequences— precisely the kind of cursive sequences of form that produce the elegant and passionate sonority for which her language was the lyre win the contest, but, according to Pausanias, the practice of singing to the accompaniment of the flute came to be dropped. for “rhe music was ill-omened to listen to. For the tunes of the flute were most dismal, and the words sung to the tunes were lamentations"*®. A low opinion of the flute. which he notes was out of fashion in his day, is also expressed by Horace in the Ars Poetica, where he equates the playing of this instrument with the taste of “a crowd of uneducated men enjoving a holiday from work, when country bumpkins rubbed shoulders with townsfolk...”°!. Horace compares the “wanton movements” that it introduced with the gravity. eloquence, and power of the lyre. Though in his praise of music (“music is helpful for every occasion and all serious activity. but especially for meeting the perils of war”), Plutarch has great praise for the music of the lyre, which “is in every way a noble famous. pursuit, being an invention of the gods”, he has Yet another instance of the inclusion of the lyre little to say about the virtues of the flute, “feeble in the Stanza della Segnatura occurs, again in the and undistinguished though the music is”, thereby ceiling, in the scene representing Apollo and Marconfirming its decline in his time“. syas (fig. 5). Though it has not been discussed before, it is perhaps significant that its chief sub- The subsequent history of the rivalry between these instruments, and the victory of the lyre. ject is not the Flaying of Marsyas, a subject well known in the history of art. Rather, the subject emphasized here is an unusual variant of this theme, the celebration of the victory of Apollo over Marsyas. Indeed, Apollo is shown being crowned with laurel. Herodotus, Plutarch, Pausanias, and other Greek writers describe contests and competitions that took place between players of the lyre and players of the flute, the two major instruments known in ancient Greece, as explained by Aristotle in his Art of Poetry”. The contest between Marsyas, who Plutarch describes as the inventor of the flute (though elsewhere he credits Apollo with this invention)", and Apollo, the inventor of the lyre, which took place according to Strabo in Asia Minor at Apameia, which is situated on the river Marsyas (though Herodotus informs us that the skin of Marsyas hung in the market place of Celaenae in Phrygia)””, was essentially a contest between the flute and the lyre. In this sense Raphael's work Fic. 5. - RAPHAEL. The Victory of the Lyre. Vatican. Stanza represents the Victory of the Lyre. Not only did della Segnatura. Photo Musei Vaticani, archivio fotografico.

appears to have a so-far unrecognized importance for the Stanza della Segnatura. It was well known the universe. Cicero alludes to the Pythagorean notion of the constant movement of the celestial to ancient Romans, and particularly to Neopythaspheres which. as elaborated by Plato in the Timaeus. goreans. who eventually merged Neoremain at constant intervals in relation to each platonists and who later be of special other and their relation to the music of the lyre: interest to humanists of the late Quattrocento and “That... is a concord of tones separated by unequal would with early Cinquecento”, that the contest between but nevertheless carefully proportioned intervals, Apollo and Marsyas symbolized the victory of the caused by the rapid motion of the spheres themlyre. which was the divine instrument that transselves. The high and low tones blended together ports souls to heaven. over the flute. which was produce different harmonies. Of course such swift a baser instrument because it excited impure pasmotions could not be accomplished in silence and, sions”. Roman sarcophagi show the contest beas nature requires, the spheres at one extreme produce tween Apollo and Marsyas taking place in the the low tones and at the other extreme the high company of the Muses, who, as symbols of imtones... mortality”, supervise the judging of this compestringed instruments and in singing, have gained tition. for themselves a return to this region, as have \ > In detaching mankind from material concerns, the victorious lyre was regarded as provoking in man the desire for divine love. And, because the lyre as known to Romans had seven strings, it came to be regarded by Neopythagoreans, who not only attached a great importance to music but as well to numbers, as an echo of the harmony of the spheres. “The greatest consideration”, wrote Plutarch. “one that particularly imitating this harmony on those who have devoted their exceptional abilities to a search for divine truths. The ears of mortals are filled with this sound, but they are unable to hear it... But the sound coming from the heavenly spheres revolving at very swift speeds is of course so great that human ears cannot catch it; you might as well try to stare directly at the sun, whose rays are much too strong for your eyes”. reveals music as most worthy of all reverence... is that the revolution of the universe and the courses of the stars are said by Pythagoras.... and the rest of the ancient philosophers not to come into being or to Gifted men, be maintained without the influence of music; for they assert that God has shaped all In his Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, Macrobius invokes the authority of Hesiod and Plato in his discussion of Cicero's concept of universal harmony, suggesting that Apollo as the sun god is the leader of the harmony in the spheres, a harmony in which the Muses participate. “Thar the priests acknowledged that the heavthings in a framework based on harmony"*, ens sing is indicated by their use of music at With its seven strings, a mystical aspiration was evoked by the lyre, reproducing the harmony of the seven planetary spheres which maintained a constant movement around a central fire. In imitating the harmony of the spheres, a concept which had been noted by (the Ionian) Heraclitus of Ephesus as well as by (the Western) Pythagoras”, the seven strings of the lyre echo the harmony of the cosmic symphony which. in producing in man a wish for heaven, symbolizes the purification of the soul?®. Both Heraclitus and Pythagoras are represented in the School of Athens. sacrificial ceremonies... the lyre or cithara [Apollo's instrument]"%. He is even more explicit in the Saturnalia: “... just as in the ‘seven strings of Apollo's lyre’ [quotation marks mine] we may see a reference to the movements of the seven celestial spheres, which nature has placed under the control of the sun”*%!. Citing his admiration for the Pythagoreans, Pico della Mirandola organized his Heptaplus, completed in 14896, into seven books each containing seven chapters, based on the organization of the planets in the cosmos described by Plato in the Timaeus. a work central The significance of these ideas was not lost on to Neopythagoreanism and the very book which the Romans. In his discussions of the harmony of Plato holds in his hand in the School of Athens.

In this context. the pair of signs accompanying the personification of Poerry above, which spell the words NVMINE AFFLATVR. acquires a grander meaning than has previously been imagined. Though Plato allowed no place for poets in his Republic. except begrudgingly. in the Phaedrus he explains why. The inspirations of poets. he says. are akin to insanity or madness. However, he of sound and light; and other senses too that come in their train are by virtue of being senses composed in conformity with a harmony. For these senses also in all of their effects have some harmony, and while inferior to the first are not severed from them. For the first. as they appear in our bodies along with the presence of God by way of reasoning. have a powerful and novel nature”. allows for a broader view of the concept of in- While Petrarch and Boccaccio appear, in late spiration, which he is the first to discuss, as a medieval times, to have reinstituted this concept in formulating their ideas concerning the role of divine release of the soul from the constraints of convention and therefore a great blessing and a gift of the gods. While Horace seems to agree that rational minds are exchanged for native genius in the case of poetsTM, and Virgil noted the breath of the Deity that transformed the maiden into the Cumaean Siby!®, it is Longinus, in the famous essay attributed to him, On the Sublime, a work of the the poet®’, especially Petrarch who regarded the poet as an inspired oracle of divine truth”, Dante also recalled it in the Divina Comedia, in describing the breath of Minerva that hastens the arrival of Apollo’'. The concept was continuously reaffirmed during Quattrocento times, as Charles Trinkhaus has shown, in the work of Coluccio Safirst importance that was known from medieval times. who was the first to specifically express lutati, Giovanni Caldiera, and Cristoforo Landino, all of whom mirror the antique idea of the divinity of the poet, or, more properly. the divinely inthis term. Writing in the spired poet”. Ist century A.D., the author describes exactly the concept of Numine Afflatur: “For many authors catch fire from the inspiration of others - just as we are told that the Pythian priestess... breathed out a divine vapour... impregnated thence with the heavenly power, and by virtue of this afflatus is at once inspired to speak oracles, So too, as though also issuing from sacred orifices, certain emanations are conveyed from the genius of the men of old into the souls of those who emulate them, and, breathing in these influences, even those who show very few signs of inspiration derive some degree of divine enthusiasm from the grandeur of their predecessors”%, Later in the same work the author speaks of “surges of divine inspiration”, noting that through this event inspired poets are able to rise above the human level and come close to the majestic mind of God’. Writing somewhat later, Plutarch Not only does the divine inspiration of the motto Numine Afflatur relate to the history of poetry and its criticism, it applies equally well, through the archaeologically correct significance of the lyre that is accorded in this chamber, to the inseparability of poetry and music as seen in the Parnassus and its ruling personification above. Hardly a casual choice. the lyres held by Sappho, Apollo, and their companions refer to the music of the spheres so important not only to Plato but to later followers of Pythagoras. Thus Aristoxus of Tarentus, Porphyry and lamblichus include Sappho in the great Pythagorean scheme for the sublime harmonies she created through the music of her lyre’. The music of the spheres thereby elevates pagan poetry to the status of a universal cosmoechoes this concept in his essay On Music : logical meaning that, in contributing to the unifying concept of the magnificent chamber that “Again, of the senses which are engendered in our was the library of Julius Il, might have given bodies because of harmony those that are celescause for concern to Plato, whose great cosmological work it seeks so eloquently to complement. tial, sight and hearing, being divine and having God as their helper in providing men with sensation, reveal this harmony to the accompaniment

NOTES 1. Among the most recent studies of this fresco is that of Paul F. Watson. “To Paint Poetry: Raphael on Parnassus”, in Renaissance Rereadings. ed. M.C. Horowitz et af., Urbana and Chicago, 1988. pp. 113-41. 2. See for example Luisa BECHERUCCI. “Raffaello e la Pittura: Il Parnasso”. in Ruffuello. ed. M. Salmi. I. Novara. 1968. 15. The most important ancient sources on the lyre. including fragments and works of ARISTOXENUS, EUCLID, NICOMACHUS, ALYPIUS, GAUDENTIUS. BACCHIUS. Aristide QUINTILIANUS, and Martianus CAPELLA, are contained in Antiquae Musicae Auctores Septem, ed. Marcus MEIBOM. Ampp. 522ff: and Giovanni BECATTI. “Raffaello e l'antico”. in sterdam. 1652; and PLUTARCH, On Music, contained in the op. cit., II. esp. pp. 527-31. Moralia. Other sources that mention this instrument abound 3. On:this see John SHEARMAN, “The Vatican Stanze: Func- Ped 14. COMPARETTI. op. cit.. p. 14. and some will be mentioned in the text below. Among modern tions and Decoration”. in Proceedings of the British Academy, sources are François Auguste GEVAERT, Histoire et théorie de LVII, 1971. pp. 369-424 (including bibliography). 4. An inventory of the books owned by Julius is contained la musique de l'antiquité, Ghent, 1875-81; Karl von Jan, Die griechischen Saiteninsirumente. Leipzig, 1882: Théodore REIin Vatican Cod. Lat. 3966. The list was published by Léon NACH. La musique Grecque. Paris, 1894: Gabriella BATTAGLIA, DOREZ in “La Bibliothèque Privée du Pape Jules II". Revue “Lira”, Enciclopedia italiana, XXI, Rome, 1934-XII, pp. 249- des Bibliothèques, V1. 1896, pp. 96-124. It should be added 50: James F. MOUNTFORD and Reginald P. WINNINGTON-INGthat Julius did possess a copy of Homer's /liad, however in RAM, “Music in Greek Life", The Oxford Classical Dictionary, the Latin translation of Lorenzo Valla. ed. N.G.L. Hammond et al., Oxford, 1972, pp. 705-13; and 5. Roger Jones and Nicholas Penny devote considerable attention to summarizing and discussing these matters in Ra- Solon MICHAELIDES, The Music of Ancient Greece. London, 1978. 16. Homeric Hymn IV: To Hermes (1V.30-530). phael. New Haven. 1983. pp. 68ff. 6. Though little is known through literary sources of Sappho's appearance, several portraits of her are recorded in antique sources. Portraits showing her seated (playing the lyre) and in bust form are extant on coins and vases. An inscribed 17. Dionysius or HALICARNASSUS, Roman 18. Homeric Hymn IV, loc. cit.: cf. Pausanias, op. cit. IX.30.1. herm (which has now disappeared) was extant in the 17th cen- 19. PLUTARCH, op. cit.. 1132 and 1135-36. tury, Regarding these see Gisela M. RICHTER, The Portraits 20. PINDAR, op. cit. 1.1-10. of the Greeks. 1. London, 1965, pp. 70-72 and op. cit. rev. ed. R.R.R. SMrrH. Ithaca, 1984, pp. 194-96. 21. PLUTARCH. op. cit.. 1135. Trans. B. EINARSON and P. DE Lacy. in Moralia, XIV, Cambridge and London, 7. See, e.g.. Sydney J. FREEDBERG. Painting in the High 22. fbid.. 1132-33. pp. 122f; and BECATTI, op. cit. 23. fbid.. 1132, 1133, and 1136. 8. See STRABO. Geography, 1V.6.12, VIN.6.21. 1X.2.25. 24. PAUSANIAS, op. cit. X.vii.3-4. 1X.3.1-3, [X.3.15, IX.4.1, and LX.4.12; and PLINY THE ELDER, 25. BATTAGLIA, op. cit., pp. 249-50. Natural History, XV.x\. 26. PLUTARCH, op. cit. cf. 1132 and 1133. 9. See PINDAR. Pyth. Odes 1.35-40 and Pausantas, Description of Greece. X.viii.9-10. cit., IX.3.1 1967, p. 383. Renaissance in Rome and Florence. I, Cambridge. 1961. esp. 10. STRABO, op. Antiquities. v11.725-26. See also BATTAGLIA, op. cit.. p. 249. 27. See PLUTARCH, op. cit.. 1133 and Horace. who refers to “the Lesbian lyre” in Odes 1.1.34, and PAUSANIAS, op. cit. X.vi.1-5. 28. See Horace, Odes Il.xiii.25. See also Alberto GENTILI, “Barbiton”, Enciclopedia italiana, VI, Rome, 1930-VIII, 11. Homeric Hymn Hl: To Pythian Apollo (111.280-525). pp. 146-47 and P.E. Arias, “Saffo”, in Enciclopedia dell'arte Trans. H.G. EveLyvn-WHITE, in Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns antica classica e orientale, V1, Rome. 1965, pp. 1062-63. See and Homerica, London and New York, 1914, p. 361. also C.H.E. HaspeLs, “Saffo, Pittore di", in foc. cit., for a 12. PLATO'S epigram is contained in The Greek Anthology 1X.506: “Some say the Muses are nine but how carelessly! Look at the tenth, Sappho from Lesbos”. Trans. W.R. PATON, The Greek Anthology, WI. London and New York, 1917, p. 281. 13. PETRARCH'S eclogue reads: reproduction from a vase painting of Sappho with the Acolian lyre. 29, See n. 14 supra. For examples see esp. Francesco VA. TIELLI, “Cetra” (cithara), in Enciclopedia italiana, IX, Rome, 1931-IX, pp. 900-02. 30. On the history of the violin see Pierre BAILLOT, L'art “Altera solliciti laqueos cantabat amoris du violon, Paris, 1835; Ercole FOLEGATTI, Storia del violino Docta puella, choris doctorum immixia virorum, e dell’archetto.... Bologna, 1873; and Wilhelm J. WasieLEW. Cinnameus roseo calamus cui semper ab ore ski, Die Violine und ihre Meister, Leipzig (1869). 1927. See Pendulus et dulces mulcebant astra querelae”. also Mario Corti, “Violino e violinisti”, Enciclopedia italiana, Cited in Domenico COMPARETTI, Sull'autenticità della epistola ovidiana di Saffo a Faone. Florence, 1876. p. 14. XXXV, Rome. 1937-XV, pp. 415-17. Regarding early violins in paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari and his school following

the emergence of this instrument after the middle of the 16th 50. PAUSANIAS, op. cit. X.vii.S-6. Trans. W.H. JONES, in century. see Emanuel WINTERNITZ, Musical Instruments and Pausanias: Description of Greece. IV. London and New York. their Symbolism in Western Art. New Haven and London, 1918, p. 405. This view had been expressed as early as the 1979, pp. 99ff. 4th century B.C. by Prato (cf. The Republic 111.399 D-E). 31. Regarding the fira da braccio, an instrument as popu- 51. Horace, Ars Poetica, op. cit. 200-20. Trans. T.S. lar in Italy as it was scarce in France, and its interpretation as an attribute of humanists in paintings, intarsie, engravings Dorsch, in Classical Literary Criticism. London. 1965, p. 86. 52. PLUTARCH, On Music, op. cit.. 1140. Trans. B. Einarand book plates. see WINTERNITZ. op. cit.. pp. 89, 92, and 96- son and P. DE Lacy, op. cit. pp. 385 and 413. 53. On Pythagoreanism and Neopythagoreanism see Ar- 98. 32. See Giorgio VASARI, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori, ed. G. mand DELATTE. Etudes sur la littérature pythagoricienne, MILANESI, IV, p. 28 and Paris, 1915; Isidore Lévy, La légende de Pythagore de Gréce pp. 498-99 (regarding Leonardo and Timoteo respectively). en Palestine. Paris, 1927; and Jérôme CARCOPINO, La basilique Regarding its depiction in the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino see pythagoricienne de la Porte Majeure, Paris, 1927. See fre- WINTERNITZ, op. cit. p. 95. quent references of Pico della Mirandola to Pythagoreans in 33. See HORACE as cited in n. 28 supra. De Hominis Dignitate and Heptaplus, both contained in Pico 34. See, e.g., Jones and PENNY, op. cit., p. 72. DELLA MIRANDOLA, Opera Omnia loannis Pici, Mirandviae, 35. See, e.g.. HERODOTUS, History, [1.135; PLATO as cited in n. 12 supra: Idem.. Phaedrus, 235C: “Longinus” (author- Basel, 1557, pp. 313-31 and 10-62 respectively. 54. On this see Franz Cumont, Recherches sur le symboship unknown), On the Sublime. X; Demetrius Tarsus, On lisme funéraire des Romains, Paris, 1942, esp. pp. 17-19 and Style, 132 and 166-67; STRABO, op. cit., 1.2.33, X.2.9, XIII, 146-47. 2. 3, XIIL2.4, and XVII.1.38; PAUSANIAS, op. cit., I.xxv.I, 55. CUMONT, op. cit, pp. 18-19. and re: the Muses. VIELxviii.5, 1X.xxvii.3, and 1X.xxix.8; HORACE as cited in pp. 259-81. n. 28 supra; idem., Epistles 1.xxix; I.LVI. For many other antique sources see Lyra Graeca, ed. 56. PLUTARCH, On Music, op. cit.. 1147. EINARSON and DE Lacy trans., pp. 453-55. Cf. PLATO, Cratylus, 405C-D and The J.M. EDMONDS, 1, London and Cambridge, 1934, pp. 141-299; Republic, X.617C. and Greek Lyric, ed. D.A. CAmP8ELL, I, Cambridge and London, 1982, esp. introduction and pp. 1-195. See also CatuLcording to which Heraclitus says that each planet revolves on LUS, poems 62 and 63. its own sphere and preserves its station. 36. See STRABO, op. cit. CICERO, in Verrem actio, X.2.9 and Ovip, Heroides. XV.3.155, 183. 37. PLUTARCH, Moralia, passim. 38. See Ficino’s reference to the words of Sappho in Fici- 57. PLUTARCH (in On Exile, 604A) cites a fragment ac- 58. CUMONT, op. cit.. pp. 17-19 and 146-47. 59. Cicero, Somnium Scipionis V.1-3 (This work, which appeared at the end of a larger work, De Re Publica, essentially lost during medieval times, survived and came to be nos Commentary on Plato's Symposium, ed. S.R. Jayne, Colwell known during this period and the Renaissance because umbia (Mo.), 1944, p. 196. of the fact that Macrobius had written a commentary on it). 96. Angelo PoLIZIANO, Commento inedito all'epistola ovidiana di Saffo a Faone, ed. E. Lazzeri, Florence, 1971. 40. COMPARETTI, op. cit. 41. Raffaelle MAFFEI, Commentaria Urbana, Rome, 1506, fol. celxviii (r). Grateful acknowledgment for assistance with this translation from the original Latin is due to Warren Smith. 42. Ibid., fol. cxx (r). 43. INGHIRAMI'S commentary on Horace is contained in Vatican Cod. Lat. 2742. Re: HORACE see n. 28 supra. 44. Horace, Ars Poetica, 405-10. On this see Paul Oskar KRISTELLER, “Music and Learning”, in Renaissance Thought and the Arts, Princeton (1964), 1980, pp. 142-62 (with bibliography). 45. See n. 43 supra. 46. INGHIRAMI, op. cit., esp. fol. 32 (r). 47. See, e.g., HERODOTUS, op. cit. referring to a Phrygian legend, VII.26; PLUTARCH, On Music, passim.; PAUSANIAS, op. Trans. W.H. STAHL, in Macrobius. Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, New York, 1952, pp. 73-74. 60. MACROBIUS, Commentary III.4. Trans. STAHL in op. cit., p. 194. 61. Macrosius, Saturnalia 1.XIX.14. Trans. P.V. DAVIES, in Macrobius : The Saturnalia, New York and London, 1969, p. 135. 62. See n. 53 supra. Cf. Philo JUDAEUS, On the Creation, 126. 63. PLATO. Phaedrus, 244-65. 64. Horace, Ars Poetica, op. cit., 290-300. 65. “... adflata est numine quando iam propiore dei” (Aeneid, VI.50-51). 66. LONGINUS, On the Sublime, XIII. Trans. DORSCH, in Classical Literary Criticism, op. cit.. p. 119. 67. LONGINUS, op. cit.. XXXHI. 68. PLUTARCH, On Music, op. cit., 1140. Trans. EINARSON cit., X.vi.4. See also ARISTOTLE, The Art of Poetry, Introducand DE Lacy, op. cit., p. 411. tion and Ch. |. 48. PLUTARCH, On Music. op. cit. 1133. 69. Regarding PETRARCH see /nvective contra medicum. ed. Pier Giorgio Ricci, Rome, 1950, esp. Bk. III. Cf. Boccac- 49. Cf. STRABO, op. cit., XII.8.15 and HERODOTUS, op. cit., cio at the end of the Genealogie deorum (esp. XV.8). On these poets and their ideas of heavenly grace see the important dis-

cussion of Charles TRINKHaus, “From Theologia Poetica to Theologia Platonica”. in /n Our {mage and Likeness. Chicago, 1970, esp. pp. 689ff. 70. TRINKHAUS. op. cit.. p. 690. 72. TRINKHAUS. op. cit. pp. 697-715, passim. 73. On this subject see CARCOPINO, “Sappho et le pythagorisme”, in De Pythagore aux Apótres: Etudes sur la conversion du monde romain. Paris. 1956. esp. p. 31. 71. Dante. Divina Comedia, Paradiso. U. 8-9. RESUME. — Sappho, Apollon, la théorie néopythagoricienne, et “Numine Afflatur” dans la fresque du Parnasse de Raphaël. Mise en évidence par la position qu'elle occupe dans la fresque du Parnasse et par l'inscription qu'elle tient. l'importance de Sappho dans cette œuvre n’a pas encore été suffisamment étudiée. Unique dans cette peinture. la figure de Sappho n'avait tout d'abord pas été intégrée à la composition pour des causes accidentelles. En tant que joueuse de la lyre éolienne, Sappho est ici reconnue comme inventeur non seulement de la poésie, mais aussi de la musique. L'importance de la lyre dans cette œuvre, méconnue à ce jour. s'étend à l'instrument dont joue Apollon, qui n'est pas un violon mais une lira da braccio. qui revétait une signification archéologique' particulière au regard des humanistes de Rome. Cette signification s'étend à son tour aux sept cordes : elles se réfèrent clairement au nombre et à l’activité mesurée des planètes lesquelles, selon les idées pythagoriciennes, sont l'objet même des préoccupations de Platon. La Victoire de la Lyre. représentée au-dessus à la voûte. offre une relation consommée entre le Parnasse et les autres fresques de la Stanza et conduit au thème de l'inspiration divine annoncée par la figure de la Poésie. suggérant une impulsion néopythagoricienne unificatrice qui sous-tend l’ensemble du programme de la Stanza.