According to Ovid (Metamorphoses, VIII: 621-96), Philemon and Baucis were an old couple who gave refuge in their humble cottage to two travellers, who turned out to be the gods Jupiter and Mercury in disguise. In gratitude the gods performed various miracles, including saving their cottage and transforming it into a temple when the surrounding land was inundated in a flood. Scorza was a specialist painter of landscapes and animals and worked mainly in Genoa.