Leonardo painted Monad at her dwelling on Earth or at "the navel of the universe" situated at mythical Delphi on Mount Parnassus in ancient Greece.
The actual sanctuary was rediscovered only in 1892 by the French school of archaeology, therefore, Leonardo at his time had to base his painting through traveling accounts mostly by Plutarch. The two columns in the paintings correspond to the actual site below.
Look out through those two columns we could see the craggy formation of Mount Parnassus that closely resemble with the photo recently taken from the site.
-We can also see the road eastward from Delphi to Thebes and Athens where "Oedipus once travelled after consulting the oracle" (D.M. Field, pg. 61...108).
-On the right side is Phaedriate Cliff where from a cleft the Castalian Spring flows. The aquaduct in the painting is Leonardo's tour de force to bring back water to the temple for the priestess Pythia to purify hereself before delivering the oracle. The idea came from the Aqua Marcia aqueduct, one of the Roman engineering wonders of the ancient world built by Quintus Marcius Rex in 144 BC. To bring water from a spring high in the mountains to Rome. In some parts of its course, this aqueduct with arches which looks like a bridge from a far, "sailed straight across the valley" (Stirling, Nora, 35).
On Earth, the Central fire, the radiating energy that Monad derives his/her life giving power is represented as a red volcano (behind her cloak and under her bosom). To quote one of Leonardo's pupils, "The Master has said: 'The vital heat of the world is fire which is spread throughout the earth; and the dwelling place of its
creative spirit is in the fires, which in divers parts of the earth are breathed out in baths and sulphur mines, and in colvanoes, such as Mount Etna in Sicily" (MC Curdy & George Braziller, 86).
-From National Geographic's February 2002 edition entitled "Edna Ignites", we can compare Edna and the volcano behind Monad's cloak:
-Each smaller volcano in the painting is a symbol of one of the gods who dwell at the sacred site of Delphi:
-Apollo: son of Monad/Leto, god of music, poetry, prophesy, and medicine.
-Bacchus or Dionysus: god of wine and revery resides in Delphi only in winter.
-Athena: god of wisdom, skill, and welfare.
-Since Bacchus (Dionysus) is the god of wine (of ecstacy), in a sketch by Leonardo, we suspect that Bacchus (St. John and Bacchus are dual personalities) is pointing to the source of the Spring of Cassoti. This is where Pythia the priestess took the ritual drink before getting into the trance.
If Leonardo believed in a simplified version that omitted the Spring Cassoti as follows: "The waters of the Spring were used in purification rites in the temple at Delphi and were also given to the Pythoness (priestess) of the oracle to drink" (Patrick, Richard, Plate 45). In the sketch above Dionysus points at the Castalian Spring in which the medium Pythia performs the cleansing rite before Apollo speaks through her. In biblical parallel, Jesus Christ spoke the words of the God Father after St. John baptized him.
Notice that the three columns of volcano smoke in the painting were mistook as stains by some researchers, however, are actually realistic observations, as shown in this photo.
It is interesting to notice that Pythagoras derived from Pythia, the name given to him by his father in honor of a good oracle at Delphi which predicted that the father "will have a god-like son". Hence "The badge and Symbol of the Sage" adopted by Pythagoras.
