In my account of the second state of engraving, I shall not make mention of the German masters, in regard to whom I have not dates that may be thought sufficient; I shall confine my attention to those of Italy. I shall compare the testimony of Vasari and Lomazzo; one of whom supposes the art to have originated in Upper, the other in Lower Italy. In his Life of Marc Antonio, Vasari observes, that Finiguerra "was followed by Baccio Baldini, a Florentine goldsmith, who being little skilled in design, every thing he executed was after designs and inventions of Sandro Botticello. As soon as Andrea Mantegna learned this circumstance at Rome, he first began to turn his attention to the engraving of his own works." Now in the life of Sandro he makes particular mention of the time when he applied himself to the art, which was at the period he had completed his labours in the Sistine chapel. Returning directly after to Florence, "he began to comment upon Dante, he drew the Inferno, and engraved it, which occupying a large portion of his time, was the occasion of much trouble and inconvenience in his future life." Botticelli is here considered an engraver from about 1474, at the age of thirty-seven years; and Baldini, who executed every thing from the designs of Sandro, also practised the art. At the same period flourished Antonio Pollaiuolo, who acquired a higher reputation than either of the last. Few of his impressions remain, but among these is the celebrated battle of the naked soldiers, approaching nearest in point of power to the bold style of Michelangiolo. The epoch of these productions is to be placed about 1480, because having acquired great celebrity by them, he was invited to Rome towards the close of 1483, to raise the monument of Sixtus IV., who died in that year.
According to Vasari, Mantegna having decorated the chapel of Innocent VIII. at Rome, about 1490,[119] from that or the preceding year is intitled to the name of engraver, computing it from about his sixtieth year. He flourished more than sixteen years after this period; during which is it to be believed that he produced that amazing number of engravings,[120] amounting to more than fifty, of which about thirty appear to be genuine specimens, on so grand a scale, so rich in figures, so finely studied and Mantegnesque in every part; that he executed these when he was already old, new to the art, an art fatiguing to the eye and the chest even of young artists; that he pursued it amidst his latest occupations in Mantua, which we shall, in their place, describe, and that he produced such grand results within sixteen or seventeen years. Either Vasari must have mistaken the dates, or wished to impose upon our credulity by his authority. Lomazzo leads us to draw a very different conclusion, when in his Treatise (p. 682) he adds this short eulogy to the name and merits of Mantegna, "a skilful painter, and the first engraver of prints in Italy;" but wherein he does not mention him as an inventor, meaning only to ascribe to him the merit of introducing the second state of the art at least in Italy; because he believed that it had already arisen in Germany. Such authority as this is worth our attention. I shall have occasion in the course of my narrative to combat some of Lomazzo's assertions; but I shall also feel bound to concur with him frequently in the epochs illustrated by him. He was born about twenty-five years subsequent to Vasari; he had more erudition, was a better critic, and on the affairs of Lombardy in particular, was enabled to correct him, and to supply his deficiencies. I am not surprised, then, that Meerman (p. 259) should suppose Andrea to have been already an engraver before the time of Baldini and Botticelli; I could have wished only that he had better observed the order of the epochs, and not postponed the praise due to him until the pontificate of Innocent VIII. In fact, it is not easy to ascertain the exact time when Mantegna first directed his attention to the art of engraving. It decidedly appears that he commenced at Padua; for the very confidence he displays in every plate, shews that he could be no novice; nor is it credible that his noviciate began only in old age. I suspect he received the rudiments of the art from Niccolo, a distinguished goldsmith, as he gave his portrait, together with that of Squarcione, in a history piece of S. Cristoforo, at the Eremitani in Padua; each most probably being a tribute of respect to his former master. It is true that we meet with no specimens of his hand at that, or even a later period of his early life; though we ought to recollect that he never affixed any dates to his works. So that it is impossible to say that none of them were the production of his earlier years, however equal and beautiful they appear in regard to their style; inasmuch as in his paintings we are enabled to detect little difference between his history of S. Cristoforo, painted in the flower of youth, and his altar-piece at S. Andrea of Mantua, which is considered one of his last labours. A specimen of his engraving with a date, is believed, however, by some, to be contained in a book of Pietro d'Abano; intitled "Tractatus de Venenis," published in Mantua, 1472, "in cujus paginâ prima littera initialis aeri incisa exhibetur, quæ integram columnæ latitudinem occupat. Patet hinc artem chalcographicam jam anno 1472 extitisse." Thus far writes the learned Panzer,[121] but whether he ever saw the work that exists in folio, and of seven pages, I am not certain.[122] A quarto edition was likewise edited in Mantua, 1473, and a copy is there preserved in the public library, but without any plates.
It is certain, however, that about this period copper engraving was practised, not only in Mantua, where Mantegna resided, but also in Bologna. The geography of Ptolemy, printed in Bologna by Domenico de Lapis, with the apparently incorrect date of 1462, is in the possession of the Corsini at Rome, and of the Foscarini at Venice.[123] It contains twenty-six geographical tables, engraved very coarsely, yet so greatly admired by