Hercules Musagetes and the gods of Olympus

Zucchi painted this crowded little scene on a sheet of copper rather than canvas or panel, a surface that holds fine detail and keeps a jewel-like shine. It measures only about 50 by 39 centimetres, made around 1577 for Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici in Rome, where Zucchi had become the cardinal's household painter and turned out small mythologies like this for close viewing. High in the sky, Hercules hands Juno the emblems that mark her as queen of Olympus, with Astraea, the goddess of justice, and Mercury, the messenger of the gods, set to either side. A whole company of Olympian figures is packed into a few inches of glinting metal. The picture once carried a different title, The Age of Iron, and was later read instead as the rule of Jupiter, which is why you may still find it under more than one name.