Zomer 1592

This small etching, Zomer, was made by Antonio Tempesta, an Italian artist working around 1600. The chariot of Summer is packed with classical imagery: a Roman centurion, an angel, putti, the goddess Ceres herself. This exuberant procession, however, can tell us a great deal about the cultural and political life of the time. Italy was a patchwork of city-states and territories, dominated by powerful families, the papacy, and foreign powers. Artists like Tempesta worked as entrepreneurs in a competitive marketplace, dependent on commissions from wealthy patrons, but aware too of the demands of a growing public audience for prints and paintings. Historical research into the patronage of such artworks, the circulation of prints, and the reception of classical imagery helps us to understand the complex social conditions that shaped artistic production in the early modern period.