Nymphs at the Bath

During the sixteenth century, the classical tradition of pastorali was revived. These were theatrical dramas in which the pleasures and pastimes of the rustic world were idealized and glorified. Scarsellino may have intended to invoke pictorially the spirit and ambience of these popular pastoral plays. His bathers are Naiads, the nymphs of bodies of fresh water, worshiped as goddesses of fertility and growth in Greek mythology. Ippolito Scarsella was the most important painter in Ferrara during the last phase of its Golden Age of painting. His landscapes of both sacred and secular themes anticipate the landscape painting tradition of the seventeenth century.