Apollo Belvedere of aesthetic perfection for Europeans and westernized parts of the world. It is now in the "Cortile del Belvedere" of the Pio-Clementine Museum of the Vatican Museums complex. The Greek god Apollo is depicted as a standing archer having just shot an arrow. Although there is no agreement as to the precise narrative detail being depicted, the conventional view has been that he has just slain the serpent Python, the chthonic serpent guarding Delphi—making the sculpture a "Pythian Apollo". Alternatively, it may be the slaying of the giant Tityos, who threatened his mother Leto, or the episode of the Niobids.
The Great Snake The Great Snake "The Great Snake" or "The Great Serpent" (, lit. "Of the Great Serpent") is a folk tale (the so-called "skaz") of the Ural region of Siberia collected and reworked by Pavel Bazhov. It was first published in the 11th issue of the "Krasnaya Nov" literary magazine in 1936 and later the same year as a part of the collection "Prerevolutionary Folklore of the Urals". It was later released as a part of "The Malachite Casket" collection. The story was translated from Russian into English by Alan Moray Williams in 1944, and by Eve Manning in the 1950s.