Plate 135: Circe Changing Ulysses' Men into Swine (Ulyssis soci a Circe in porcos), from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'

Art Historical Context

In this etching, the sorceress Circe stands at left, her flowing robes and raised wand directing attention toward a muscular man with a pig’s head who reaches eagerly for a bowl. Smaller pigs cluster at their feet, while an armored figure watches from the background. Fine, precise lines and dense cross-hatching define the folds of fabric, the texture of armor, and the shadows of an interior space furnished with ornate vessels and heavy drapery. This print is Plate 135 from Antonio Tempesta’s 1606 series illustrating Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Titled Circe Changing Ulysses’ Men into Swine, it records the moment when the enchantress transforms the companions of the hero Ulysses into animals, a scene the artist rendered in the compact format of an etching. Tempesta’s clear narrative style made classical myths accessible to a broad seventeenth-century audience. The work’s modest scale and lively detail invite close looking, revealing both the drama of the transformation and the enduring appeal of Ovid’s tales.

About the Artist

Antonio Tempesta · 1555–1630

Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630), known as 'Il Tempestino,' was a Florentine painter and printmaker whose extraordinary output of approximately 1,700 etchings made him one of the most influential printmakers of the early Baroque period. Born in Florence and trained under Santi di Tito and the Flemish master Joannes Stradanus, he enrolled in the Accademia del Disegno in 1576 before relocating to Rome i...