ITALIAN SCHOOL OF ENGRAVING. 



difcovcrs itfclf in other fubordinate accefTories as the fringed 

 ornament of (lately grandeur. 



" In his Dance of females, he has fhewn fo much of the 

 graceful fimphcity and general air of Greek fculpture, as to 

 give rife to a belief that it has been copied from an antique 

 baflo-relievo : but till fuch a bafTo-relievo is fiiewn, it would 

 be unfair in us to refigu fo much of the merit of Andrea 

 Mantcgna as this compofition may claim. Thefe three 

 engravings abundantly demonllrate the wide range of his 

 tech.nical and inventive powers ; and (hew with what fuccefs 

 he could combine, or feparately exhibit, elegance, wilduefs, 

 and srrandeur, as occafion admitted or required. 



" Some critics have thought that Mantegna's admiration of 

 the antique was too predominant in his works; that it too fre- 

 quently engron'ed his powers ; and hurried him too entirely 

 away from that contemplation of nature, which mud always 

 be one of the parents of originahty in art. Yet, if this enthu,- 

 fiafm be a fault, it is a fault proceeding fo nece{urily, and fo 

 in^mcdiately, from the localities of time and place, and the re- 

 d'.mdance of his merits, that it is as fecure of pardon from the 

 candid, as thofe merits are of praife." Landfeer's Leflures. 



The monogram of this celebrated engraver, refembling that 

 of Marc Antonio, will be found in our Plali: I. of thofe of 

 the Ilahan School. The following lill is believed to contain 

 all his principal works, and it is not certain that he engraved' 

 any more than this lift contains. They are of folio dimenfions, 

 and fome of thenn very large ; — " The Madonna and Infant 

 Chrift," (copied by Strutt in his Biographical Dictionary 

 of Engravers); " Tlie Clioice of Hercules ;" "Hercules 

 overcoming Antxus," infcribed " Divo Herculi invido.'' 

 " The Marriage of Eneas with Lavinia ;" " The Scourging 

 of Chrift ;" " The Entombing of Chrift," infcribed " Hu- 

 mani generis Redemptor ;" " The Defcent of the Saviour 

 to Hell ;"^" The Pvefurreaion of Jefus Chrift ;" " Judith 

 with the Head of llulofernes ;" and two grotefqiie monfters 

 fighting iv tlie prefence of two warriors. 



The following are the principal fubjecls of M. Landfeer's 

 comments which are quoted above : — "A Bacchanalian Pro- 

 cefFion," in which both fawns and fatyrs are introduced ; 

 •' A Ba! tie between various marine Monfters ;'" "A Dance of 

 Four Females ;" " Tlie Triumph of Julius Cvsefar,'' engraven 

 on nine plates, wliicli, when joined, form a magnificent 

 friexe : but it is uncommon to find a colieflion where the 

 nine are complete. 



Giovanni Marix da Brefcia, or Brixienfis, was a native 

 of Brefcia, in the Venetian territory, and was born A.D. 

 1460. He was an ecclefiaftic of the order of Carmelites, 

 and about the beginning of the fixteenth century, painted 

 " The Hiftory of Eliiha and Elijah" for the monaftery to 

 which he belonged. He alio prailifed goldfmithery ; but it 

 is his engravings, which are fomewhat numerous, that are 

 the proper lubjeil of our prefent notice. 



Tile llyle of his uumual execution is not always alike. 

 in fome of his prints it is evidently formed on that' of An- 

 drea Mantegna, the linos which form tlie (hadows being 

 laid from one corner of the plate toward the other, without 

 any crofs hatchings, fomewhat neater than thofe of his great 

 exemplar, but very inferior to him in every otlier refpeft. 

 On other occafions he employed fecond courfcs of lines, 

 but his drawing is heavy, and his extremities not well 

 niark.'d : yet his prints, of which the principal are en- 

 till.d as follows, are mucl> foughr after by the curious : — 

 " The Virgin Mary fealed on a Bencii with a Book in her 

 right Hand, holding the Infant Chrift ;" " The Virgin 

 feated upon Clouds witii the Infant Clirill ; St. John Bap- 

 tift, St. Jerome, and three Carmelite Friars below," dated 

 1502 J " The Miracle of St. Gregory rclloring a Boy to 



Life." It is a large folio of thirteen inches by nine, and is 

 infcribed " Opus fris io Maria" Brixienfis, or Carraclitarum 

 MCCCCCII." The manual part of the engraving of this 

 plate is in a mixed ilyle between thofe of Mantegna and 

 Marc Antonio. " The Hiftory of the Emperor Trajan," 

 wherein the artift has complimented the reigning pope, by 

 introducing him at a balcony above. 



Giovanni Antonio da Brefcia, the brother of the preced- 

 ing artift, was born at Brefcia fome time about the year 

 1461, and alfo became a Carmelite friar. He applied more 

 clofely to engraving than Giovanni Maria;, and lludied the 

 works of Mantegna with fomewhat better fuccefs. Yet 

 his outline is poor, though his manual execution is fufR- 

 ciently tl?ar and neat. We have fubjoined a lift of his 

 moft efteemed works, of which the bcft a]ipear to be copies 

 from Andrea Mantegna : — '■' Hercules vanquid^ing the Ne- 

 mean Lion,'' after Andrea Mantegna, infcribed " D. Here 

 in viclo ;'' two plates of " Hercules" and " Anta-us,'' 

 after the fame mafter, one of them an upright 4to. ; " A 

 White Horfe," refembling that by Albert Durer, excej)t 

 in the back ground, a fmali upright ; " The Scourging of 

 Chrift," a large uprigh". Of thefe the earlieft and beft 

 impreffions are dated 1503, and a fecoud edition was printed 

 in 1509. " The Virgin and Child ;" "The Holy Family, 

 with St. Jofeph afleep ;" two plates of a " Satyr and 

 Female," infcribed " Victoria Augufta," on a tablet ; 

 " A naked Female repofing with au Infant, while a Satyr 

 is playing en a Pipe.'' 



Hieronymus Mocetus, or Jerome Mocetto, engraved both 

 on metal and on wood, and was born at Verona in the 

 year 1454. Strutt's account of him is as follows : — " The 

 prints by this ancient mafter are by no means common. He 

 worked with the graver only ; but did not excel in the ma- 

 nagement of that inllrumcnt. His ftyle of engraving bears 

 fome refcmblance to that of Robella. Though it is con- 

 Cdcrably neater and cleaier, he did not draw the naked parts 

 of the human iigure correSly. The extremities efjjecially 

 are very defeflive. The ftudy of the chiarofcuro was at 

 this time very little attended to. We muft not wonder, 

 therefore, at finding the works of this artill totally dcftitute 

 ofefTeCt. However, they are not without merit; though, 

 it muft be confcffed, that their fcarcity ftamps the greateit 

 value on them. We have by him, " The Refurrettion of 

 Chrift, with Four Soldiers at the Foot of the Tomb," ap- 

 parently fi-om his own defign ; " A Sacrifice," with many 

 (igures, from an antique bas-relief ; a middling-lized plate, 

 lengthways. Alfo feveral battles, with other fiibjefls ; 

 which are varioufly marked, as may be feen in our Plate I. 

 of the monograms, &c. of the Italian School of Enp-avers. 



Nicoletta, or Nicolas da Modena, was a iia'.ive of Mo- 

 dena, and feenis to have (ludied architecture and perfpedtive 

 wilh more aCiduity than iuccefs. He is ranked as one of 

 the earlieft engravers ol the fchool of Lombardy ; and, 

 when we examine his work*, it fcems as if the name of en- 

 graving on'y had reached him ; and that he had been 

 obliged to work out his own fyilem. It is aftonithing, at 



fo 



lany engravers of confequence wei 



and had produced fuch a variety of excellent prints, ti- 

 pecially Marc Antonio and his fcholars, that this man, who 

 was himfelf a painter, (liould have been fo much at a lofs, 

 not only in the mechanical part of the execution of his- 

 plates, b.it with refpcft to the coirpofttions and drawing 

 of them alfo. If tlieie rude proJuilions have any merit to 

 recommend them, it muft confift in the buildings and arcii:- 

 tedUiral ornaments, which he introduced into his defigns, 

 and with which he has freqiently crowded them in a very 

 ablurd manner.; he worked with ihe gruvcr only ; and ins 

 ^6 lavgea 



