Stradanus, Johannes Stradanus, Jan van der Straet or Giovanni Stradano (1523 – 2 November 1605) was a Flemish artist active mainly in 16th-century Florence, Italy. He was a wide-ranging talent who worked as an easel and fresco painter, designer of tapestries, draughtsman, designer of prints and pottery decorator. His subject range was varied and included history subjects, mythological scenes, allegories, landscapes, genre scenes, portraits, architectural scenes and animals. After training in his native Flanders, he left his home country and ultimately settled down in Florence, Italy. He became a prominent court artist to the Medici during the second half of the 16th century and worked on the many decorative projects of the court. Stradanus also produced large altarpieces for the most important churches in Florence. He was a prolific designer of prints which were circulated widely throughout Europe for many centuries. Through his knowledge of Florentine and Italian art and his international contacts with engravers and editors in Antwerp, Stradanus contributed to the development of printmaking. He was one of the earliest members of the prominent Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno established in Florence in 1563. Stradanus also worked on various commissions in Rome, and resided in Naples from 1576 until about 1580. Thereafter he returned to Florence, dying there in 1605. Life Born in Bruges, he began his training in the shop of his father. He subsequently continued his training in the workshop of the otherwise unknown Bruges master Maximiliaen Francken (from 1535 to 1537). He later moved to Antwerp, where he studied from 1537 to 1540 in the workshop of Pieter Aertsen, a Dutch genre painter active in that city. There he mastered the visual language of the Renaissance and the ability to depict complex compositions. In 1545 he was registered under the name Hans vander Straten as a master painter in the Antwerp guild of Saint Luke. In Antwerp he moved in the circle of the Romanists, i.e. Northern artists who had traveled to Italy and upon their return to their home country created a Renaissance style, which assimilated Italian formal language. As was common at the time, he left his home country to travel to Italy to complete his studies. He traveled first to Lyon where he may have worked with the Dutch painter Corneille de la Haye. He then moved on to Venice where he spent a few months. In Venice he met