Populated with elegantly long-limbed figures, this highly stylized engraving typifies a Mannerist approach to the composition of prints. It is based on the painted fresco decoration in the Sala dei Venti in the Palazzo Te, the pleasure palace of Federico II Gonzaga, ruler of Mantua in the mid-sixteenth century. So called because of the presence on its walls of decorative masks personifying the winds, the Sala dei Venti was designed by Raphael’s pupil Giulio Romano, who made his modelli, or highly finished preparatory drawings, available to printmakers for their translation into engravings, as Raphael had done earlier in the century.
In this case, Bonasone probably had access to Giulio’s designs, as both print and drawing set the mythical scene within a grape arbor, distinct from the fresco, which situates the Roman goddess of spring and her nymphs in a forest. The nude reclining in the foreground at left resembles an ancient marble statue of the Cretan princess Ariadne that was displayed in the Belvedere Court at the Vatican in the first decade of the sixteenth century, positioning Bonasone in a direct line of stylistic inheritance from Raphael, whose designs after ancient Roman sculptures were produced in print by the engravers with whom he collaborated.
Claire Spadafora Baes
2025
