MARC ANTONIO OF BOLOGNA, AND OTHER ENGRAVERS OF PRINTS.
[End of the 15th, and first half of the 16th century.]
In our theory of painting we said but little of copperplate engraving, seeing that it was then sufficient for our purpose to show the method of engraving on silver with the burin, which is a square instrument of iron, cut diagonally, and with sharp points; we will, therefore, take the occasion of this life to say what may seem needful to the better understanding of the subject.
The commencement of the practice of copper-plate engraving was made by Maso di Finiguerra, about the year of our salvation 1460.[1] Of every work which this artist engraved on silver preparatory to its completion in Niello,[2] betook the impression in clay, then poured dissolved sulphur over it, whereby the impression was repeated, and appeared blackened with smoke, displaying in oil the subject which appeared on the plate of silver. He then did the same on damped paper, and with the same colour, going over the whole very gently with a round roller, the result being that these pictures not only appear as if printed, but have the effect of those designed with the pen.
Maso di Finiguerra was followed by the Florentine goldsmith, Baccio Baldini,[3]who had no great power of design,
- ↑ Zani, Materiali per servire alia Storia dell' Intaglio, &c., has shown that the practice here attributed to Finiguerra had its origin at least teU years earlier than the date assigned to it by Vasari. A beautiful Pax, by Finiguerra, who was a distinguished worker in Niello, is now in the Gallery of the Uffizj at Florence; and two examples of the earliest impressions taken in sculpture, in the manner which Vasari has attempted to describe, are to be still seen; the one in Genoa, in the Durazzo Collection, the other in what was the collection of the Duke of Buckingham. Of the impression on paper discovered by Zani in the Cabinet of Engravings at Paris, a detailed description will be found in the above cited Materiali, &c. See also Denon, Histoire de l'Art.
- ↑ Ottley, Early History of Engraving, See., and Duchesne, Essai sur les Nielles, remark on the insufficiency and obscurity of this description, and supply its deficiencies. See also Bartsch, Le Peintre Graveur, vol. xiii. pp. 1—35.
- ↑ Born in Florence in 1436, and was still living in 1480. But little is known of this artist; his first works appeared in the Monte Santo di Dio, which appeared at Florence in 1477, and the copper-plates to Dante’s
