life of St. John the Baptist, the Acts of the Apostles, two series of the Resurrection of Christ and countless loose devotional prints that Stradanus designed. In addition, Stradanus drew inspiration for subjects from the Florentine intellectual and literary climate in which he lived. Important were his contacts with the exiled Florentine writer and scholar Luigi Alamanni and other members of the Alamanni family who are mentioned in various commissions and dedications to prints. Luigi Alamanni likely inspired Stradanus to illustrate the entire Divina Commedia. Stradanus made a number of drawings for this project which was never completed. Only one of these drawings, depicting Canto 34 of Hell, where Dante and Vergilius look at Lucifer in the center of the earth, was engraved by Philip Galle. Other themes that tie in with similar intellectual interest are the Nova reperta, depicting inventions of the modern era ending with a print showing an active printshop and the Americae retectio, a so-called 'picture atlas', issued in leaflet form to commemorate the first centenary of the discovery of the New World. It has been argued that the two prints in the Nova reperta series on America of which one shows Amerigo Vespucci's first encounter with the New World and the four symbolic prints making up the Americae retectio series were aimed at showing the presumed important role played by Florence in the discovery of America as Vespucci was a Florentine. The prints and their allegorical symbols were disseminated widely through the next century and informed the contemporary perception of America. He also designed a series depicting the Horses of the Stable of John of Austria and the Illustrious acts of Roman women. In yet another genre of print designs, aimed at a wider audience, Stradanus referred back to the subjects which he had elaborated as a court artist to the Medici court in his designs of tapestries and frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio: a series that recounts the history and production of silk, an extensive series on the military triumphs of the Medici and a series depicting hunts of various animals published under the title Venationes Ferarum, Avium, Piscium. While some of the hunts in the last series are depicted in a relatively realistic manner, such as the dramatic rendering of horsemen with lances trying to kill a lion that fiercely resists, other hunts seem rather unrealistic such as the print showing leopards being