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 Worship of the Serpent The Worship of the Serpent The Worship of the Serpent by John Bathurst Deane is an 1833 study of snake worship and specifically the snake mentioned in the Book of Genesis who convinced Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, leading her to convince Adam to do the same. A number of Gnostic texts, some only discovered recently such as those from the Nag Hammadi Library expound on an idea of knowledge and how the serpent gave knowledge to man. Deane draws a number of conclusions and makes certain guesses regarding snake