Bandinelli a large plate that he had previously begun, with a great
number of nude figures engaged in roasting S. Laurence on the gridiron,
which was held to be truly beautiful, and was indeed engraved with
incredible diligence, although Bandinelli, complaining unjustly of Marc'
Antonio to the Pope while that master was executing it, said that he was
committing many errors. But for this sort of gratitude Bandinelli
received the reward that his lack of courtesy deserved, for Marc'
Antonio, having heard the whole story, and having finished the plate,
went, without Baccio being aware of it, to the Pope, who took infinite
delight in the arts of design; and he showed him first the original
drawing by Bandinelli, and then the printed engraving, from which the
Pope recognized that Marc' Antonio not only had committed no errors, but
had even corrected with great judgment many committed by Bandinelli,
which were of no small importance, and had shown more knowledge and
craftsmanship in his engraving than had Baccio in his drawing. Wherefore
the Pope commended him greatly and ever afterwards received him with
favour; and it is believed that he might have done much for him, but the
sack of Rome supervening, Marc' Antonio became little less than a
beggar, seeing that, besides losing all his property, he was forced to
disburse a good ransom in order to escape from the hands of the
Spaniards. Which done, he departed from Rome, never to return; and
there are few works to be seen which were executed by him after that
time. Our arts are much indebted to Marc' Antonio, in that he made a
beginning with engraving in Italy, to the advantage and profit of art
and to the convenience of her followers, in consequence of which others
have since executed the works that will be described hereafter.
Now Agostino Viniziano, of whom we have already spoken, came to
Florence, after the circumstances described above, with the intention of
attaching himself to Andrea del Sarto, who was held to be about the best
painter in Italy after Raffaello. And so Andrea, persuaded by this
Agostino to have his works engraved, made a drawing of a Dead Christ
supported by three Angels; but since the attempt did not succeed exactly
according to his fancy, he would never again allow any work of his to be
engraved. After his death, however, certain persons published engravings
of the Visitation of S. Elizabeth and of the Baptism of the people by S.
John, taken from the work in chiaroscuro that Andrea painted in the
Scalzo at Florence. Marco da Ravenna, likewise, in addition to the works
already mentioned, which he executed in company with Agostino, also
engraved many others by himself, which are all good and worthy of
praise, and are known by his signature, which has been described above.
Many others, also, have there been after these, who have worked very
well at engraving, and have brought it about that every country has been
able to see and enjoy the honoured labours of the most excellent
masters.
Nor has there been wanting one who has had the enterprise to execute
with wood-blocks prints that possess the appearance of having been made
with the brush after the manner of chiaroscuro, which is an ingenious
and difficult thing. This was Ugo da Carpi, who, although he was a
mediocre painter, was nevertheless a man of most subtle wit in strange
and fanciful inventions. He it was, as has been related in the thirtieth
chapter of the Treatise on Technique, who first attempted, and that with
the happiest result, to work with two blocks, one of which he used for
hatching the shadows, in the manner of a copper-plate, and with the
other he made the tint of colour, cutting deeply with the strokes of the
engraving, and leaving the lights so bright, that when the impression
was pulled off they appeared to have been heightened with lead-white.
Ugo executed in this manner, after a design drawn by Raffaello in
chiaroscuro, a woodcut in which is a Sibyl seated who is reading, with a
clothed child giving her light with a torch. Having succeeded in this,
Ugo took heart and attempted to make prints with wood-blocks of three
tints. The first gave the shadow; the second, which was lighter in tone,
made the middle tint, and the third, cut deeply, gave the higher lights
of the ground and left the white of the paper. And the result of this,
also, was so good, that he executed a woodcut of Æneas carrying Anchises
on his back, while Troy is burning. He then made a Deposition from the
Cross, and the story of Simon Magus, which had been used by Raffaello
for the tapestries of the above-mentioned Chapel; and likewise David
slaying Goliath, and the Flight of the Philistines, of which Raffaello
had prepared the design in order to paint it in the Papal Loggie. And
after many other works in chiaroscuro, he executed in the same manner a
Venus, with many Loves playing about her.
Now since, as I have said, he was a painter, I must not omit to tell
that he painted in oils, without using a brush, but with his fingers,
and partly, also, with other bizarre instruments of his own, an
altar-piece which is on the altar of the Volto Santo in Rome. Upon this
altar-piece, being one morning with Michelagnolo at that altar to hear
Mass, I saw an inscription saying that Ugo da Carpi had painted it
without a brush; and I laughed and showed the inscription to
Michelagnolo, who answered, also with a laugh, that it would have been
better if he had used a brush, for then he might have done it in a
better manner.
The method of executing these two kinds of woodcuts, in imitation of
chiaroscuro, thus invented by Ugo da Carpi, was the reason that, many
following in his steps, a great number of most beautiful prints were
produced by others. For after him Baldassarre Peruzzi, the painter of
Siena, made a similar woodcut in chiaroscuro, which was very beautiful,
of Hercules driving Avarice, a figure laden with vases of gold and
silver, from Mount Parnassus, on which are the Muses in various lovely
attitudes. And Francesco Parmigiano engraved a Diogenes for a sheet of
royal folio laid open, which was a finer print than any that Ugo ever
produced. The same Parmigiano, having shown the method of making prints
from three blocks to Antonio da Trento, caused him to execute a large
sheet in chiaroscuro of the Beheading of S. Peter and S. Paul. And
afterwards he executed another, but with two blocks only, of the
Tiburtine Sibyl showing the Infant Christ in the lap of the Virgin to
the Emperor Octavian; a nude man seated, who has his back turned in a
beautiful attitude; and likewise an oval print of the Madonna lying
down, with many others by his hand that may be seen in various places,
printed after his death by Joannicolo Vicentino. But the most beautiful
were executed later by Domenico Beccafumi of Siena, after the death of
Parmigiano, as will be related at greater length in the Life of
Domenico.
Not otherwise than worthy of praise, also, is the method that has been
invented of making engravings more easily than with the burin, although
they do not come out so clear--that is, with aquafortis, first laying on
the copper a coat of wax, varnish, or oil-colour, and then drawing the
design with an iron instrument that has a sharp point to cut through the
wax, varnish, or colour, whichever it may be, after which one pours over
it the aquafortis, which eats into the copper in such a manner that it
leaves the lines of the design hollow, and impressions can be taken from
it. With this method Francesco Parmigiano executed many little things,
which are full of grace, such as the Nativity of Christ, a Dead Christ
with the Maries weeping over Him, and one of the tapestries executed for
the Chapel after the designs of Raffaello, with many other works.
After these masters, fifty sheets with varied and beautiful landscapes
were produced by Battista, a painter of Vicenza, and Battista del Moro
of Verona. In Flanders, Hieronymus Cock has executed engravings of the
liberal arts; and in Rome, engravings have been done of the Visitation
in the Pace, painted by Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, of that by Francesco
Salviati in the Misericordia, and of the Feast of Testaccio; besides
many works that have been engraved in Venice by the painter Battista
Franco, and by many other masters.
But to return to the simple copper-plate engravings; after Marc' Antonio
had executed the many works that have been mentioned above, Rosso
arrived in Rome, and Baviera persuaded him that he should have some of
his works engraved; wherefore he commissioned Gian Jacopo Caraglio of
Verona, who was one of the most skilful craftsmen of that day, and who
sought with all diligence to imitate Marc' Antonio, to engrave a lean
anatomical figure of his own, which holds a death's head in the hand,
and is seated on a serpent, while a swan is singing. This plate
succeeded so well, that the same Rosso afterwards caused engravings to
be made, on plates of considerable size, of some of the Labours of
Hercules: the Slaying of the Hydra, the Combat with Cerberus, the
Killing of Cacus, the Breaking of the Bull's Horns, the Battle with the
Centaurs, and the Centaur Nessus carrying off Deianira. And these plates
proved to be so beautiful and so well engraved, that the same Jacopo
executed, likewise after the design of Rosso, the story of the daughters
of Pierus, who, for seeking to contend with the Muses and to sing in
competition with them, were transformed into crows.
Baviera having then caused Rosso to draw twenty Gods in niches, with
their attributes, for a book, these were engraved by Gian Jacopo
Caraglio in a very beautiful and graceful manner; and also, not long
afterwards, their Transformations; but of these Rosso did not make the
drawings, save only of two, for he had a difference with Baviera, and
Baviera had ten of them executed by Perino del Vaga. The two by Rosso
were the Rape of Proserpine and the Transformation of Philyra into a
horse; and all were engraved with such diligence by Caraglio, that they
have always been prized. Caraglio afterwards began for Rosso the Rape of
the Sabines, which would have been a very rare work, but, the sack of
Rome supervening, it could not be finished, for Rosso went away, and the
plates were all lost. And although this work has since come into the
hands of the printers, it has proved a miserable failure, for the
engraving has been done by one who had no knowledge of the art, and
thought only of making money.
After this, Caraglio engraved for Francesco Parmigiano a plate of the
Marriage of Our Lady, and other works by the same master; and then
another plate for Tiziano Vecelli, which was very beautiful, of a
Nativity that Tiziano had formerly painted. This Gian Jacopo Caraglio,
after having executed many copper-plates, being an ingenious spirit,
gave his attention to engraving cameos and crystals, in which he became
no less excellent than he had been in the engraving of copper-plates.
And since then, having entered the service of the King of Poland, he has
occupied himself no longer with engraving on copper, now in his opinion
a mean art, but with the cutting of gems, with working in incavo, and
with architecture; for which having been richly rewarded by the
liberality of that King, he has spent large sums in investments in the
territory of Parma, in order to be able to retire in his old age to the
enjoyment of his native country among his friends and disciples, after
the labours of so many years.
After these masters came another excellent copper-plate engraver,
Lamberto Suave,[15] by whose hand are thirteen plates of Christ and the
twelve Apostles, in which the execution of the engraving is perfect in
its delicacy. If Lamberto had possessed a more thorough mastery of
design in addition to the industry, patience, and diligence that he
showed in all other points, he would have been marvellous in every
respect; as may be perceived clearly from a little sheet of S. Paul
writing, and from a larger sheet with the story of the Raising of
Lazarus, in which there are most beautiful things to be seen. Worthy of
note, in particular, are the hollow rock in the cavern which he
represented as the burial-place of Lazarus, and the light that falls
upon some figures, all of which is executed with beautiful and fanciful
invention.
No little ability, likewise, has been shown in this profession by Giovan
Battista Mantovano, a disciple of Giulio Romano; among other works, in a
Madonna who has the Child in her arms and the moon under her feet, and
in some very beautiful heads with helmet-crests after the antique; in
two sheets, in which are a captain of mercenaries on foot and one on
horseback, and also in a sheet wherein is a Mars in armour, who is
seated upon a bed, while Venus gazes on a Cupid whom she is suckling,
which has in it much that is good. Very fanciful, also, are two large
sheets by the hand of the same master, in which is the Burning of Troy,
executed with extraordinary invention, design, and grace. These and
many other sheets by the same hand are signed with the letters "J.B.M."
And no less excellent than any of those mentioned above has been Enea
Vico of Parma, who engraved the well-known copper-plate of the Rape of
Helen by Rosso, and also another plate after the design of the same
painter, of Vulcan with some Loves, who are fashioning arrows at his
forge, while the Cyclopes are also at work, which was truly a most
beautiful engraving. He executed the Leda of Michelagnolo on another,
and also an Annunciation after the design of Tiziano, the story of
Judith that Michelagnolo painted in the Chapel, the portrait of Duke
Cosimo de' Medici as a young man, in full armour, after the drawing by
Bandinelli, and likewise the portrait of Bandinelli himself; and then
the Contest of Cupid and Apollo in the presence of all the Gods. And if
Enea had been maintained and rewarded for his labours by Bandinelli, he
would have engraved many other beautiful plates for him. Afterwards,
Francesco, a protégé of the Salviati, and an excellent painter, being in
Florence, and assisted by the liberality of Duke Cosimo, commissioned
Enea to engrave the large plate of the Conversion of S. Paul, full of
horses and soldiers, which was held to be very beautiful, and gave Enea
a great name. The same Enea then executed the portrait of Signor
Giovanni de' Medici, father of Duke Cosimo, with an ornament full of
figures. He engraved, also, the portrait of the Emperor Charles V, with
an ornament covered with appropriate Victories and trophies, for which
he was rewarded by His Majesty and praised by all; and on another plate,
very well engraved, he represented the victory that the Emperor gained
on the Elbe. For Doni he executed some heads from nature in the manner
of medallions, with beautiful ornaments: King Henry of France, Cardinal
Bembo, Messer Lodovico Ariosto, the Florentine Gello, Messer Lodovico
Domenichi, Signora Laura Terracina, Messer Cipriano Morosino, and Doni
himself. He also engraved for Don Giulio Clovio, a most excellent
illuminator, a plate of a S. George on horseback who is slaying the
Dragon, in which, although it was, one might say, one of the first works
that he engraved, he acquitted himself very well.
Afterwards, being a man of lofty genius, and desiring to pass on to
greater and more honourable undertakings, Enea applied himself to the
study of antiquities, and in particular of ancient medals, of which he
has published several books in engraving, wherein are the true effigies
of many Emperors and their wives, with every kind of inscription and
reverse that could bring all who delight in them to a clear
understanding of their stories; for which he has rightly won great
praise, as he still does. And those who have found fault with him for
his books of medals have been in the wrong, for whoever shall consider
the labours that he has performed, and how useful and beautiful these
are, must perforce excuse him, even though he may have erred in a few
matters of little importance; and such errors, which are not committed
save from faulty information, from a too ready credulity, or from having
opinions differing from others with some show of reason, are worthy to
be excused, seeing that Aristotle, Pliny, and many others have been
guilty of the like.
Enea also designed to the common satisfaction and benefit of all mankind
fifty costumes of different nations, such as were worn by men and women,
peasants and citizens, in Italy, in France, in Spain, in Portugal, in
England, in Flanders, and in other parts of the world; which was an
ingenious work, both fanciful and beautiful. He executed, also, a
genealogical tree of all the Emperors, which was a thing of great
beauty. And finally, after much toil and travailing, he now lives in
repose under the shadow of Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, for whom he has
made a genealogical tree of all the Marquises and Dukes of the House of
Este. For all these works and many others that he has executed, as he
still continues to do, I have thought it right to make this honourable
record of him among so many other men of the arts.
Many others have occupied themselves with copper-plate engraving, who,
although they have not attained to such perfection, have none the less
benefited the world with their labours, by bringing many scenes and
other works of excellent masters into the light of day, and by thus
giving the means of seeing the various inventions and manners of the
painters to those who are not able to go to the places where the
principal works are, and conveying to the ultramontanes a knowledge of
many things that they did not know. And although many plates have been
badly executed through the avarice of the printers, eager more for gain
than for honour, yet in certain others, besides those that have been
mentioned, there may be seen something of the good; as in the large
design of the Last Judgment of Michelagnolo Buonarroti on the front wall
of the Papal Chapel, engraved by Giorgio Mantovano, and in the
engravings by Giovan Battista de' Cavalieri of the Crucifixion of S.
Peter and the Conversion of S. Paul painted in the Pauline Chapel at
Rome. This Giovan Battista has also executed copper-plate engravings,
besides other designs, of the Meditation of S. John the Baptist, of the
Deposition from the Cross that Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra painted
in a chapel in the Trinità at Rome, of a Madonna with many Angels, and
of a vast number of other works. Moreover, many things taken from
Michelagnolo have been engraved by others at the commission of Antonio
Lanferri, who has employed printers for the same purpose. These have
published books of all the kinds of fishes, and also the Phaethon, the
Tityus, the Ganymede, the Archers, the Bacchanalia, the Dream, the
Pietà, and the Crucifix, all done by Michelagnolo for the Marchioness of
Pescara; and, in addition, the four Prophets of the Chapel and other
scenes and drawings have been engraved and published, but executed so
badly, that I think it well to be silent as to the names of those
engravers and printers.
But I must not be silent about the above-mentioned Antonio Lanferri and
Tommaso Barlacchi, for they, as well as others, have employed many young
men to engrave plates after original drawings by the hands of a vast
number of masters, insomuch that it is better to say nothing of these
works, lest it should become wearisome. And in this manner have been
published, among other plates, grotesques, ancient temples, cornices,
bases, capitals, and many other suchlike things, with all their
measurements.
Seeing everything reduced to a miserable manner, and moved by
compassion, Sebastiano Serlio, an architect of Bologna, has engraved on
wood and copper two books of architecture, in which, among other things,
are thirty doors of the Rustic Order, and twenty in a more delicate
style; which book is dedicated to King Henry of France. Antonio
L'Abacco, likewise, has published plates in a beautiful manner of all
the notable antiquities of Rome, with their measurements, executed with
great mastery and with very subtle engraving by ... Perugino. Nor has
less been accomplished in this field by the architect Jacopo Barozzo of
Vignola, who in a book of copper-plate engravings has shown with simple
rules how to enlarge or to diminish in due proportion every part of the
five Orders of Architecture, a work most useful in that art, for which
we are much indebted to him; even as we are to Giovanni Cugini[16] of
Paris for his engravings and writings on architecture.
In Rome, besides the masters named above, Niccolò Beatricio[17] of
Lorraine has given so much attention to engraving with the burin, that
he has executed many plates worthy of praise; such as two pieces of
sarcophagi with battles of horsemen, engraved on copper, and other
plates full of various animals very well executed, and a scene showing
the Widow's Daughter being restored to life by Jesus Christ, engraved in
a bold manner from the design of Girolamo Mosciano, a painter of
Brescia. The same master has engraved an Annunciation from a drawing by
the hand of Michelagnolo, and has also executed prints of the Navicella
of mosaic that Giotto made in the portico of S. Pietro.
From Venice, likewise, have come many most beautiful engravings on wood
and on copper; on wood, after Tiziano, many landscapes, a Nativity of
Christ, a S. Jerome, and a S. Francis; and on copper the Tantalus, the
Adonis, and many other plates, which have been engraved by Giulio
Bonasone of Bologna, together with some others by Raffaello, by Giulio
Romano, by Parmigiano, and by all the other masters whose drawings he
has been able to obtain. And Battista Franco, a painter of Venice, has
engraved, partly with the burin and partly with aquafortis, many works
by the hands of various masters, such as the Nativity of Christ, the
Adoration of the Magi, the Preaching of S. Peter, some plates from the
Acts of the Apostles, and many stories from the Old Testament. So far,
indeed, has this practice of making prints been carried, that those who
make a profession of it keep draughtsmen continually employed in copying
every beautiful work as it appears, and put it into prints. Wherefore
there came from France, after the death of Rosso, engravings of all the
work by his hand that could be found, such as Clelia with the Sabine
women passing the river; some masks after the manner of the Fates,
executed for King Francis; a bizarre Annunciation; a Dance of ten women;
and King Francis advancing alone into the Temple of Jupiter, leaving
behind him Ignorance and other similar figures, which were executed
during the lifetime of Rosso by the copper-plate engraver Renato.[18]
And many more have been drawn and engraved since Rosso's death; among
many other works, all the stories of Ulysses, and, to say nothing of the
rest, vases, chandeliers, candelabra, salt-cellars, and a vast number of
other suchlike things made in silver after designs of Rosso.
Luca Penni, also, has published engravings of two Satyrs giving drink to
a Bacchus, a Leda taking the arrows from the quiver of a Cupid, Susannah
in the Bath, and many other plates copied from the designs of the same
Rosso and of Francesco Primaticcio of Bologna, now Abbot of S. Martin in
France. And among these engravings are the Judgment of Paris, Abraham
sacrificing Isaac, a Madonna, Christ marrying S. Catharine, Jove
changing Callisto into a bear, the Council of the Gods, Penelope weaving
with her women, and other things without number, engraved on wood, and
executed for the most part with the burin; by reason of which the wits
of the craftsmen have become very subtle, insomuch that little figures
have been engraved so well, that it would not be possible to give them
greater delicacy. And who can see without marvelling the works of
Francesco Marcolini of Forlì? Who, besides other things, printed the
book of the Garden of Thoughts from wood-blocks, placing at the
beginning an astrologer's sphere and a head of himself after the design
of Giuseppe Porta of Castelnuovo della Garfagnana; in which book are
various fanciful figures, such as Fate, Envy, Calamity, Timidity,
Praise, and many others of the same kind, which were held to be most
beautiful. Not otherwise than praiseworthy, also, were the figures that
Gabriele Giolito, a printer of books, placed in the Orlando Furioso, for
they were executed in a beautiful manner of engraving. And even such,
likewise, were the eleven large anatomical plates that were done by
Andrea Vessalio after the drawings of Johann of Calcar, a most excellent
Flemish painter, which were afterwards copied on smaller sheets and
engraved on copper by Valverde, who wrote on anatomy after Vessalio.