Son of Jupiter and Letona; Diana's twin brother. Apollo is the sun god and also the god of the arts, poetry, music, eloquence, and medicine. Apollo loved Daphne. One day, as he pursued her, the river god Peneius protected her by transforming her into a laurel tree—the scene depicted by Antonio del Pollaiuolo in 1470-1480 (London, National Gallery) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1622-1625 (Rome, Galleria Borghese). Distraught, Apollo declared the laurel his sacred tree. For this reason, he is normally crowned with a laurel wreath. Apollo also loved the Cumean Sibyl but, because she rejected him, he denied her youth. Michelangelo depicted the woman on the Sistine ceiling at the Vatican (1508-1512) as old and wrinkled. As the sun god, Apollo appears in Guido Reni's Aurora (1613) in the Casino Rospigliosi, Rome, riding his chariot across the firmament. In Diego Velázquez' Forge of Vulcan (1630; Madrid, Prado), he informs Vulcan of Venus' infidelity, and in Raphael's School of Athens (1510-1511; Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura) he is shown as a statue in a niche with lyre in hand in his role as the god of poetry and eloquence who inspires the learned men from antiquity.
See also Apollo and Daphne.
Historical dictionary of Renaissance art. Lilian H. Zirpolo. 2008.