Antonio Tempesta. Antonio Tempesta, also called il Tempestino, was an Italian painter and engraver, whose art acted as a point of connection between Baroque Rome and the culture of Antwerp.
He was born and trained in Florence and painted in a variety of styles, influenced to some degree by Counter-Maniera or Counter-Mannerism. He enrolled in the Florentine Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in 1576.
He was a pupil of Santi di Tito, then of the Flemish painter Joannes Stradanus. He was part of the large team of artists working under Giorgio Vasari on the interior decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
His favourite subjects were battles, cavalcades, and processions. He relocated to Rome, where he associated with artists from the Habsburg Netherlands, which may have led to his facility with landscape painting.
Among his followers was Marzio di Colantonio. Tempesta and the Flemish painter Matthijs Bril were commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII to paint wide panoramas of the Procession to Transfer the Relics of St. Gregory of Nazianzus for the loggias on the third floor of the Vatican Palace. He completed frescoes in the Palazzina Gambara at the Villa Lante in Bagnaia. From 1579-83, Tempesta participated in the decoration of the Villa Farnese in Caprarola, notably of this villa's Scala Regia. He is also known to have collaborated on frescoes in the Villa d'Este at Tivoli and the Palazzina Gamara