Diana was the goddess of the hunt, whose role it was to watch over wild animals. In this print she is resting one hand on a bow. With her other hand, she is taking an arrow from her quiver. The deer in the print, meanwhile, refers to an occasion when Prince Actaeon chanced to see Diana bathing naked in a grotto in the forest. Diana was very virtuous. And so that he should not tell anyone of what he had seen, she transformed him into a deer. The goddess of the hunt was originally associated with the earth. Later, she was also identified with the goddess of the moon, Luna. Hence the small half moon shown in the print immediately above Diana’s forehead.
Diana, the goddess of the hunt, is typically portrayed as athletic, tall and slender. Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1550) has portrayed her with a strikingly small head and with hips of considerable size. From 1520, Fiorentino introduced what a more recent age has termed mannerism. This word derives from the Italian “maniera” – manner. The distorted body is an example of a stylistically conscious manner.
