Hendrik Frans van Lint, A Landscape with an Italian Hill Town

We don't know where this castle and the surrounding landscape is located, but they are likely to be based on scenes Hendrik Frans van Lint saw when he was living in Italy. He was working with a group of Dutch and Flemish artists who returned home to the Netherlands to paint the mountainous scenery and soft, clear light of Italy. Van Lint shared in the popularity of these paintings with Northern European audiences. In this picture, he has opted for a cooler sky to bring out the sombre grey walls of the castle.

Like several other Italianate painters, van Lint sometimes enhanced the grandeur and lyricism of a scene by the addition of classical figures. In the foreground of this picture, the strolling couple are thought to be the Trojan hero Aeneas and the Sibyl, a priestess of Apollo who told fortunes. She foretold his death after many battles, but agreed to guide him to find his dead father in the underworld before his troubles began.