TEMPESTA, ANTONIO.—Painter, born in Florence in 1555, died in Rome in 1630. Pupil of Jan van der Straat and Santi di Tito.
While still very young, he found employment at the Court of Pope Gregory XIII. He subsequently devoted himself especially to engraving, confirming his gifts as an easy and agreeable narrator, even if at times somewhat superficial, of scenes of hunting, battles, and banquets. T. is in any case a Mannerist who already opens the door to the true Baroque, with a highly refined sense of decoration. Despite his extensive pictorial production, not many paintings can today be attributed to him with certainty. Nevertheless, among the most important, according to the general opinion, are, among the frescoes, those in the Vatican Gallery (now the Gallery of Maps); Fame and Honour in the Loggia degli Svizzeri; several decorations in the Rospigliosi Palace, at the Quirinal, in the Santacroce and Giustiniani palaces, in the chapel of S. Giovanni Evangelista in S. Giovanni in Fonte, of S. Antonio Abate at S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini, at S. Stefano Rotondo, at S. Pancrazio in Rome, and the decorations in the Scala regia of the Farnese Palace at Caprarola; as well as works in various galleries. Among the engravings: scenes from the life of s. Giorgio; 12 scenes from the life of Alessandro Magno; Ovid’s Metamorphoses; countless scenes, executed in collaboration with Bartsch; and the illustration of Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata with full-page scenes.