Jupiter Assuming the Form of Diana in Order to Seduce Callisto

This engraving depicts a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses where Jupiter adopts the form of the huntress Diana to bypass Callisto's vow of chastity. The disguised god is identifiable by the large eagle—Jupiter's primary attribute—partially hidden behind his legs, while a group of nymphs bathes in the distance. The figures are rendered in the elegant, elongated style of the Haarlem Mannerists, set against a dense, textured landscape with a quiver of arrows resting in the foreground.

Hendrick Goltzius's illustrations of Ovid were central to the Northern Renaissance project of 'integumentum,' the practice of interpreting mythological narratives as allegorical veils for astronomical, moral, or natural philosophical truths. The myth of Callisto was particularly significant in the esoteric tradition due to her eventual transformation into the constellation Ursa Major, linking earthly narrative to the celestial movements studied by astrologers and Neoplatonists.