uncle of the Cardinal who ordered the picture from
Raphael. It was the fashion of the day thus to introduce a patron into
a painting, and Raphael has made them as obscure as he well could.

We must not look at this great picture as if it were a panorama, where
a succession of scenes is witnessed, or find fault with it because the
Bible says that the transfiguration took place on one day and the
scene below took place the next day, when Jesus and his disciples had
come down from the mountain. Nor is anything said in the Bible which
would lead us to suppose that Jesus and the prophets were raised above
the ground.

No; what Raphael intended was to draw a contrast between an earthly
scene of suffering and a heavenly scene of peace and serenity; and he
took two scenes which lie next each other in the scripture narrative.
That was his thought, and see how wonderfully he has expressed this
contrast throughout!

There is the dark confusion and helplessness and grief below; above is
a scene of light which is like a vision, and this vision two of the
disciples see; and as we have pointed out, a contrast is made evident
in various parts of the picture. Indeed, the painting is made up of
contrasts; and not the least noticeable is that of the solid mass
below, square shaped, and the light, pyramid-shaped composition above.

The Transfiguration was the last painting to which Raphael set his
brush, and it was still unfinished when he was suddenly stricken with
fever and died. As his body lay in state, in the hall where he had
been working, this great picture was hung at the head, and the people
who came in fell to weeping when they saw it.

XI

PARNASSUS

Raphael was but twenty-five years old when he was bidden adorn a room
in the Vatican palace, and he made the four walls answer to four
divisions in the ceiling, just as afterward in the Heliodorus room.
The four divisions in the ceiling were filled with four figures,
representing Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Justice. Beneath Poetry
was this large, full design of Parnassus.

[Illustration: PARNASSUS
_Vatican Palace, Rome_]

Parnassus, in the old Greek myth, was the mountain on which the muses
were wont to meet, and here Apollo had his chief seat. Here, in the
fancy of the ancients, the poets and historians and dramatists came to
draw inspiration. So Raphael has made a great company of gods and
goddesses, and ancient and modern poets.

By means of the accom