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Ovid and Montagna
Printmakers sometimes drew heavily from book illustrations when producing their own single-sheet prints, and few appear to have done so with more enthusiasm than the northern Italian engraver Benedetto Montagna. For his print depicting the musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas, which he prominently signed with his name, Montagna borrowed the two main figures from a woodcut he found in the first illustrated vernacular edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which recounts the tale and its gruesome conclusion. In punishment for his audacity in believing that he could be a better musician than the god Apollo, Marsyas was flayed alive. |