Raphael’s Parnassus and Renaissance Afterlives of Homer ADAM T. FOLEY , New York, NY The figure of Homer in Raphael’s “Parnassus” is singular for the combination of blindness, divine inspiration, improvisational song, and an amanuensis to immortalize the performance. This article examines humanist biographies of Homer to identify the pre-text of Raphael’s Homer and to deter- mine if it reflects the political influence of Julius II. Though no one source can be asked to bear such responsibility, the article gestures to the doctrine of divine madness in Laurentian Florence, in which vatic authority derives from Apollo. Raphael may have therefore conceived of Homer as Apollo’s priest to give visual endorsement to Julius’s Apollinian ideology. INTRODUCTION AFTER ASCENDING TO the papal throne in 1503, Pope Julius II (r. 1503– 13) set out to sully the already sulfurous reputation of Pope Alexander VI Borgia (r. 1492–1503). He began not by erasing his memory so much as painting over it. From February 1508 through September 1509 he hired various artists to dec- orate the interior of the Vatican palace, including Balduino da Lecco, Cesare da Sesto (1477–1523), Il Sodoma (1477–1549), Jan Ruyssch, Michele del Becca, Bramantino (ca. 1455–before 1536), and Lorenzo Lotto (1480–1556). 1 Among the payment records for this project there remains one receipt for 100 ducats paid on 13 January 1509 to “Raphael Johannis Santi de Urbino.” 2 Julius had hired Raphael (1483–1520) to paint his private library, now called the Stanza della Segnatura, located in the camerae superiores (upper rooms) built by Nicholas V (r. 1447–55), above what later became the Borgia apartments. 3 The walls and ceiling had already been decorated by 1 For the payment records, see Shearman, 2003, 124–28. 2 Shearman, 2003, 123–24. 3 Shearman, 2003, 123, notes that in a palatial context the term camerae superiores is not a generic designation for “upper rooms” but a specific one, “and the comparative superior refers to the distinction between the two superimposed papal apartments constructed by Nicholas V.” Renaissance Quarterly 73 (2020): 1–32 © The Author(s) 2020. Published by the Renaissance Society of America. doi: 10.1017/rqx.2019.491