Parnassus

Mars and Venus stand crowned together on a rocky arch as the nine Muses dance below to Apollo's lyre, with Mercury and the winged horse Pegasus at the right and, off at the left, Venus's cuckolded husband Vulcan fuming at his forge. It is a learned hymn to harmony and the arts, painted for the studiolo - the private study - of Isabella d'Este in Mantua, the most exacting art patron of the age. The hard, stony precision of Mantegna's earlier work, seen elsewhere in this collection, has loosened here into graceful, rhythmic movement: antiquity no longer excavated but set dancing.