Below Poetry is an illustration of mount Parnassus where the god Apollo, seated in the centre, plays the lyre. He is surrounded by the nine Muses, patrons of the arts, and by ancient and modern poets, among whom we can easily identify Homer (blind), Virgil and Dante behind him as well as, seated lower down on the left, the poetess Sappho with her name written on the sheet of paper that she is holding in her left hand.