TEMPESTA Antonio

(Florence 1555 – Rome 1630)

Italian painter and engraver, a pupil in Florence of Santi di Tito and Jan Van Straat called ‘Stradano’, with whom he collaborated on the frescoes of Palazzo Vecchio.
After moving to Rome in 1573, under the pontificate of Gregory XIII, he worked on the decorations of the Third Lodge with the panels of the ‘Traslazione di San Gregorio’ and painted some maps of the ‘Sala delle carte geografiche’ in the Vatican, including the famous’ Map of Rome ‘of 1593.
During his first Roman period he worked for illustrious families of nobles and cardinals such as Scipione Borghese and Alessandro Farnese, decorating important churches and residences including the church of San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini, San Pancrazio, Santo Stefano Rotondo, the Santa Croce palaces and Giustiniani in Rome and Villa Caprarola in Tivoli.
On his return to Florence he collaborated with Alessandro Allori, Ludovico Buti and Ludovico Cigoli, on the grotesque decoration of the ceilings of the Uffizi Gallery. Once again in Rome he devoted himself above all to engraving with a vast production (over 1500 works).
In his prints we see a late mannerist taste in a repertoire of very varied works with hunting scenes, landscapes, battles, historical and sacred episodes.
Important were his ‘Series’, often consisting of a large number of incisions: such as the Hunts, the Old Testament illustrations known as the ‘Tempesta’s Bible’, the tables of ‘Jerusalem delivered’ and those of ‘Metamorphoses of Ovid ‘.  In his time he enjoyed great fame and his prints played an important role in the spreading of late Mannerist style in Europe.