1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Carpi, Ugo da

CARPI, UGO DA, Italian 15th-century painter, was long held the inventor of the art of printing in chiaroscuro, afterwards brought to such perfection by Parmigiano and by Baltasar Peruzzi of Siena. The researches of Michael Huber (1727–1804) and Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (1719–1794) have proved, however, that this art was known and practised in Germany by Johann Ulrich Pilgrim (Wächtlin) and Nikolaus Alexander Mair (1450–c. 1520), at least as early as 1499, while the date of the oldest of Da Carpi’s prints is 1518. Printing in chiaroscuro is performed by using several blocks. Da Carpi usually employed three—one for the outline and darker shadows, another for the lighter shadows, and a third for the half-tint. By means of them he printed engravings after several pictures and after some of the cartoons of Raphael. Of these a Sybil, a Descent from the Cross, and a History of Simon the Sorcerer are the most remarkable.