Raphael's Parnassus in the Vatican is the paradigmatic representation of the theme, from which all later versions drew inspiration. Since the room in which it was painted, the Stanza della Segnatura—believed to have been the private library of Pope Julius II (r. 1503–13)—was not publicly accessible until well into the seventeenth century, it was Marcantonio's print that established its canonical status. Numerous differences between the engraving and the completed fresco, however, indicate that the engraving records an early idea for the composition based on a lost drawing by Raphael.

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