In the year 8 CE, Roman author Ovidius Naso—a.k.a. Ovid—completed a wild, messy, wonderful poem reimagining and combining more than 250 myths. The 11,995-line tale is as elusive as its shape-shifting characters, who magically disguise themselves or are transformed into stars, animals, and plants. Eros, god of love, propels the besotted to eternal glory or embarrassment and death.

With its rediscovery, translation, and publication into multiple languages during the Renaissance, Ovid’s poem became a fountain of ideas for artists, second only to the Bible. This exhibition highlights prints exploring the myths of change found in the poem by artists such as Giuseppe Scolari and Lucas van Leyden.