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III. Looking to Antiquity

The Renaissance revival of ancient Greco-Roman culture began in the literary world before gradually spreading to the arts. Humanists studied copies of important ancient texts and published their own annotated versions of them. Of all those texts, the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses played a particularly important role in the development of the visual arts. Composed of numerous tales drawn from Greek and Roman mythology, this Latin epic poem was translated into many languages and published throughout Europe during the Renaissance. Artists were inspired by these mythological narratives and their accompanying printed illustrations to create paintings and sculptures depicting the ancient gods and their stories in deeply human terms.

In addition to those ancient literary works, Renaissance artists also studied ancient architecture and sculpture. They visited the ruins of Rome to sketch the reliefs on triumphal arches and marble statues depicting the gods, and in doing so, gained a more thorough understanding of ancient imagery and modes of representing the human figure. Even those artists unable to travel to Italy were able to study ancient art through printed reproductions and plaster casts.

By the late fifteenth century, ruins were being actively excavated, and fascination with the ancient world continued to grow. Royalty and nobility throughout Europe sought to enhance the prestige of their collections by acquiring small-scale reproductions of ancient sculptures. This growing demand encouraged Renaissance artists to revive the art of bronze casting. By mastering lost-wax casting, they were able to produce a wide variety of bronze works, ranging from monumental sculptures to tiny figures intended for display in the studies of royalty and the aristocracy, as well as decorative plaques and medals.