Prise de la Ville de Bone (Capture of the City of Bonne), from La Vie de Ferdinand Ier de Médicis série appelée aussi Les Batailles des Médicis (The Life of Ferdinand I de'Medici also called The Medici Battles)

Art Historical Context

This engraving, created between 1614 and 1620, depicts the dramatic capture of the North African city of Bône (modern-day Annaba, Algeria) by forces under Ferdinand I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. It forms part of the series *The Life of Ferdinand I de’ Medici*, also known as *The Medici Battles*, which celebrates the ruler’s military campaigns against Ottoman and Barbary forces. The work highlights the era’s fascination with heroic leadership and Mediterranean power struggles during the early seventeenth century. Jacques Callot, working from designs by Matteo Rosselli, employed the demanding technique of engraving to achieve remarkable detail in a compact format. His precise lines convey the chaos of battle—soldiers scaling walls, ships in the harbor, and billowing smoke—while maintaining clarity across the composition. As one of the most influential printmakers of the Baroque period, Callot helped transform engravings into powerful tools for storytelling and political propaganda, allowing such images to reach wide audiences through multiple impressions. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of drawings and prints, this first-state impression offers visitors a vivid glimpse into how art served both to document and glorify historical events in the seventeenth century.

About the Artist

Jacques Callot|Matteo Rosselli · 1592–1635

Jacques Callot (1592–1635) was a French printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine, widely regarded as one of the first great artists to practice the graphic arts exclusively. His more than 1,400 etchings chronicled the breadth of 17th-century life, from Medici court festivities to the brutal realities of warfare. Callot revolutionized etching through technical innovations including the é...