Battle Scene with Horses and Men c. 1517

Domenico Campagnola made this pen and brown ink drawing, "Battle Scene with Horses and Men," in sixteenth-century Italy. Look closely, and you’ll see a frenzied melee of soldiers on horseback locked in combat. The clash of bodies and the dynamism of the scene are characteristic of the Renaissance interest in classical antiquity and heroic subjects. But, in a culture where warfare was common, what role would an image like this have played? Was it a simple record of a battle? Or something more complex? The availability of printed images was growing, especially in artistic centres such as Venice, where Campagnola worked. Drawings could be reproduced as prints, allowing for the wide dissemination of visual ideas. Perhaps it's an exercise in artistic virtuosity. As historians, we must look to period sources and other imagery to understand this drawing fully. What were the political, economic, and social conditions that shaped its production? We can only understand the artwork through its context.