23

A Visual Source for Shakespeare's 'Tempest'

It's intriguing, but two things. Prospero is conspicuously not a knight. He is a pure scholar; his inability to look outside his books is the reason he got into this mess.

Also, Shakespeare had two more native inhabitants of that island, Ariel and Sycorax (Caliban's mother, defeated by Prospero).

So even if Shakespeare had noted this image, it doesn't sound like a core inspiration for the play. It's worth continuing to look at and see if we can learn anything about the text, but I suspect that this short article is both the beginning and end of that line of inquiry.