Edgar Wind ("The Four Elements in Raphael's 'Stanza della Segnatura,'" Journal of the Warburg Institute, II, 1937/38, pp.75-79) identifies the scenes in the framework joining the personifications of the disciplines with the four elements. The upper pictures, in grisaille, are drawn from Roman history, while the lower ones, in color, have mythological subject matters. The following table summarizes Wind's arguments.
|
Element
|
Mythological
Scene
|
Roman
History
|
Position
|
|
Fire
|
Forge
of Vulcan
|
Mucius
Scaevola placing his hand in the burning flame of the altar.
|
Between Theology and Poetry |
|
Air
|
Amphitrite
fleeing Neptune hides herself on the Island of Atlas. Standing on a dolphin,
Amphitrite holds a sail so that the wind may speed her journey.
|
Pax
Augustea:
the triumphant Augustus is crowned by the winged Nike, holding a palm
in her hand.
|
Between
Poetry and Philosophy
|
|
Water
|
Satyr
disturbing a pair of lovers by pouring water over their head.
|
The
Sabine Mettius Curtius, rather than submitting to the pursuing Romans,
leads his horse into the waters of the swamp which became known as the
Lacus Curtius.
|
Between
Philosophy and Justice
|
|
Earth
|
Fettered
Giants, the offspring of Earth.
|
The Justice of Junius Brutus who condemned his own sons to death for their
part in the Tarquinian Conspiracy. He also ordered the destruction of
the Tarquinian fields, whose crops thrown into the Tiber, formed a mass
of new soil, the Campus Martius.
|
Between
Justice and Theology
|