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Swiss family of collectors of German origin. Johannes Amerbach (b ?Amorbach, c. 1450; d Basle, Dec 25, 1513) gained his MA at the Sorbonne, Paris, and trained as a printer in Nuremberg and Venice. In 1482 he settled in Basle, where in 1484 he founded his own print shop and publishing house. He was in close contact with Albrecht Dürer during the latter’s stay in Basle (1491–2). Apart from works of art for personal use, for example ornamental daggers, he probably owned graphic and print blocks for woodcut illustrations by Dürer. Johannes’s son, Bonifacius Amerbach (b Basle, 11 Oct 1495; d Basle, 24 April 1562), a lawyer, professor at the University of Basle and syndic of the Basle council, was the heir and executor of Erasmus and owned paintings by the Holbein family and important gold and silver pieces, for example the well-known ‘...

(b Mantua, 1558–9; d 1629).

Italian woodcutter and printer. He was the only printmaker to produce a significant number of chiaroscuro woodcuts in Italy in the second half of the 16th century; he also reprinted chiaroscuro woodblocks originally cut 60 or 70 years earlier. He made at least 35 prints in both black and white and colour (many multiple-sheet), using a sophisticated style of cutting characterized by thin, closed contours. Based in Florence in 1584–5 and from 1586 in Siena, by 1590 he was also finding work in his native Mantua, where he is documented as establishing a workshop. He reproduced the designs of artists in diverse media with great fidelity: for example he made several prints (1586–90) after Domenico Beccafumi’s intarsia pavement designs in Siena Cathedral, three prints (1584) from different angles of Giambologna’s marble sculpture of the Rape of the Sabines (Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi; see fig.), as well as of the bas-relief on the base of the same group and of Giambologna’s relief of ...

(fl Basle, 1485; d 1524).

German engraver and printer. He established himself in Basle in 1485 but subsequently worked as a printer in Strasbourg (1487, 1488), Pforzheim (1500–10), Tübingen (1511–17) and Hagenau (1516–22). Although a few of his prints bear dates between 1501 and 1506, stylistically his work belongs to the 15th-century tradition....

[Pieter]

(b Antwerp, c. 1526–28; d Antwerp, 1584).

South Netherlandish painter, draughtsman, engraver and publisher. He was the son of the sculptor Balten Janszoon de Costere (fl 1524). In 1550 he became a master in the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp and in 1569 its dean. Primarily on the authority of van Mander, Baltens was long considered to be an inferior imitator of Bruegel family, §1 the elder. Baltens’s best-known work, the signed St Martin’s Day Kermis (e.g. versions Amsterdam, Rijksmus.; Antwerp, Kon. Mus. S. Kst.), was formerly thought to be a free copy after Bruegel’s treatment of the subject, known through an engraving and the Gift of St Martin, a fragment on cloth (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). The relationship between Baltens and Bruegel is, however, more complicated. In 1551 they collaborated on an altarpiece (destr.) for the Mechelen Glovemakers. Baltens’s other works, for example the Ecce homo (Antwerp, Kon. Acad. S. Kst.), reveal that the two artists were closely associated: a group from the ...

[Baemler, JohannBemler, Hans]

(fl 1453–1504).

German illuminator and printer. He is listed in the Augsburg tax rolls from 1453 as a scribe and from 1477 as a printer. Bämler belonged to the guild of painters, glassmakers, woodcut-makers and goldbeaters, eventually achieving the rank of Zwollfer (director). Examples of his youthful work are two signed miniatures dated 1457 (New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib., MS. M.45) and a signed historiated initial on a detached Antiphonal leaf (Philadelphia, PA, Free Lib., Lewis M 67:3). Between 1466 and 1468 he rubricated and decorated with calligraphic and painted ornament four books printed in Strasbourg: a Latin Bible (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bib., Bibel-S.2°155), a copy of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologica (Munich, Bayer Staatsbib., 2° Inc. s.a.1146a) and two copies of St Augustine’s City of God (Chantilly, Mus. Condé, XXII.D.11, and Manchester, John Rylands U. Lib., no. 3218, Inc. 3A8).

Bämler’s knowledge of printing was probably acquired in Augsburg, in the shop of ...

[Bononia, Baveram de; Carocci, Baverio de’]

(fl c. 1515–after 1527).

Italian printer. From northern Italy, possibly of German descent, he was an assistant in Raphael’s workshop in Rome. From 1515–16 he was the workshop printer of the engraved plates that Raphael commissioned from Marcantonio Raimondi. He is mentioned in documents dated 1515, 1516 and 1523. After Raphael’s death in 1520, he evidently continued in his position under the new head of the workshop, Giulio Romano. He became an independent printer in 1524 and was still working in Rome after the Sack in 1527. According to Vasari, Baviera printed plates engraved by Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio, including the Labours of Hercules (b. 44–9), the Gods and Goddesses in Niches (b. 24–43), the Loves of the Gods (b. 9–23) and the Rape of the Sabine Women (b. 63).

(b Thionville, 1507, or Lunéville, 1515; d Rome, c. 1565).

French engraver. He was probably related to a family of goldsmiths from Nancy, but his working life was spent in Italy. He produced many engravings for publishers in Rome and specialized mostly in reproducing Italian paintings, views of ancient Rome and to a lesser extent portraits. He worked for the engraver and publisher Tommaso Barlacchi in 1541 and 1550, producing Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh’s Dreams (Robert-Dumesnil, no. 2), the Ascension (rd 14) and Christ Delivering Souls from Limbo (rd 15) after Raphael. He also worked for Antonio Salamanca, for whom he made versions of paintings by Raphael, Michelangelo (e.g. Virgin of Sorrows, 1547; rd 18) and Baccio Bandinelli (e.g. Struggle between Reason and the Passions, 1545; rd 36).

After 1547 Beatrizet seems to have worked for Antoine Lafréry, for whom he made engravings of views of Roman monuments and antique sculptures—for example The Pantheon (rd 103) and the ...

(b Bergamo, c. 1458; fl Venice, 1543).

Italian printer and publisher of books and prints. He settled in Venice c. 1480 and in 1483 was running a bookshop at the sign of St Jerome in the Merceria and published the Supplementum chronicarum of Jacobus Philippus Foresti (Bergomensis; 1434–1520). Between then and 1543, the year of the publication of Girolamo Savonarola’s Trattato dell’amor di Gesù, he published (alone or with other publishers) over 100 texts of Classical and contemporary authors, treatises on law and medicine, as well as several books of a religious nature, mostly in Latin. Among the most famous illustrated works are those of Dante Alighieri (1491) and Ovid (1493–4). After c. 1500 Benalio’s publishing activity declined (c. 40 post-1500 publications are known), perhaps pushed into second place by his new interest, the publication and marketing of prints. For this purpose he opened a branch at Padua, entrusting its management to a relative, ...

Italian family of typographers, engravers, publishers and print dealers. Members of the family were active in Venice and Padua in the 16th century and the early 17th. Most notable among them were Luca Bertelli (fl Venice, c. 1560; fl Padua, 1594), Orazio Bertelli (fl Venice, 1562–88), who was possibly Luca’s brother, and Ferdinando (Ferrando, Ferrante) Bertelli (fl Venice, 1561–72). It is difficult to determine the extent of Luca Bertelli’s participation in the execution of the prints he published; they were mainly historical, religious and mythological. Orazio Bertelli probably encouraged Agostino Carracci’s visit to Venice in 1582. Orazio’s engravings included the works of Federico Barocci, Domenico Tibaldi and Paolo Veronese, notably a Pietà (De Grazia, p. 125, no. 102). Ferdinando Bertelli was best known for his publication of a vast number of maps, by both Italian and foreign cartographers.

(b Mechelen, 1545; d Antwerp, 1608).

Flemish painter, engraver and draughtsman. His identity is confused: it is known that a painter called Pieter van der Borcht worked in Mechelen for the Antwerp publisher Christoph Plantin from 1564 onwards. From 1552 until at least 1592 this artist—referred to as Pieter van der Borcht IV by Hollstein and as Pieter van der Borcht II by Bénézit—made etchings as well as woodcuts with the inscription fecit petrus van der borcht.

In addition, there was a Pieter van der Borcht active in Mechelen, who, after 1552, made woodcuts which he signed p.b. Thus, either one artist had a steady output of woodcuts and etchings over a long career (1552–c. 1600) or there were a number of artists with the same name. The second hypothesis seems the more likely. It is supported by other facts. In 1580 a ‘Pieter Verborcht, painter’ became a master in the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp, of which he served as dean in ...

(fl 1488; d Padua, Feb 1530).

Italian illuminator, printmaker and writer. He is first mentioned in Padua as an illuminator in 1488. He has been identified as the Benedetto Padovano who signed the Digestum novum (benedi[cti] patav[ini]) and the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX (be[nedicti] pa[tavini]), published by Jenson in Venice in 1477 and 1479 respectively (Gotha, Landesbib., Mon. Typ. 1477; Mon. Typ. 1479). Both incunabula were commissioned by the German book dealer Peter Ugelheimer, for whom Girolamo da Cremona also worked, probably shortly after 1483; the apparent dependence of Bordon’s style on Girolamo, particularly in his early works, may suggest that the Gotha incunabula were decorated after that date, during the years in which Bordon is documented in Padua. In the same period he probably also illuminated two folios (Munich, Staatl. Graph. Samml., 40198 and 40140), a Book of Hours (Vienna, Österreich. Nbib., Cod. 1970) and a Cistercian Breviary (Oxford, Bodleian Lib., MS. Canon. Lit. 343)....

(b Antwerp, 1540; d Cologne, 1587).

Flemish engraver and publisher. His earliest dated engravings are two series: Friezes with Hunting Scenes (1565–6; Hollstein, nos 61–6) and Ornaments with Figures on a Black Background (1566, 1569; Hollstein, nos 121–6). From those same years comes an excellent engraving of a Horseman of the Apocalypse (1568; Hollstein, no. 42) and a series of Apostles (1568; Hollstein, nos 16–27). In 1570 he was working in Breda, where he engraved series of illustrations for Christoph Plantin (e.g. engravings after Pieter van der Borcht IV and Crispijn de Passe I for the Humanes salutis monumenta of B. A. Montanus, 1571; Hollstein, nos 384–455, and engravings after van der Borcht for Officium B. Mariae Virginis, 1575; Hollstein, nos 32–5). From 1577–c. 1580 Abraham was in Cologne, where he published a series of costumes from various countries and continents for the Omnium poene gentium imagines (1577) and the ...

(b Verona or Parma, c. 1500–05; d ?Kraków, Aug 26, 1565).

Italian engraver, goldsmith and medallist, active also in Poland. He is first recorded in 1526 in the entourage of Marcantonio Raimondi in Rome. There the printer and publisher Baviera introduced him to Rosso Fiorentino, whose allegory Fury he engraved (b. 58). Caraglio continued to collaborate with Rosso and engraved several suites, such as the Labours of Hercules (b. 44–9), Pagan Divinities in Niches (b. 24–43) and Loves of the Gods (b.9–23; two after Rosso and eighteen after Perino del Vaga). After the Sack of Rome (1527), Caraglio took refuge in Venice, where he made engravings after Titian (b. 3, 64). His presence is recorded there until 1537.

By 1539 Caraglio was in Poland, probably at the recommendation of his friend Pietro Aretino, who had contacts in the court of Bona Sforza (1494–1557), wife of Sigismund I, King of Poland. By ...

(b Viterbo; fl 1560; d Naples, April 16, 1620).

Italian printmaker and cartographer. He was in Rome by 1560, the date of his first known engraving, the Adoration of the Shepherds (b. 2), after Heinrich Aldegrever. Bartsch recorded 28 prints by him, to which Passavant added a further 27. Mainly engravings, his works include St Jerome (b. 14), after Albrecht Dürer, Christ Descending into Limbo (b. 7), after Andrea Mantegna, the Last Judgement (b. 18), after Michelangelo, and a Landscape (b. 26), after Titian. Until 1577 Cartaro collaborated with the publisher Antoine Lafréry, providing illustrations for the Speculum Romanae magnificentiae, a collection of plans and views issued between 1545 and 1577, and for Le tavole moderne di geografia (c. 1580). After this, he turned increasingly to the more profitable activity of print-selling. He spent his last years in Naples making drawings for printed maps of the kingdom of Naples (e.g. b. 27) with the help of the mathematician ...

(b Villa Lagarina, nr Trento, c. 1525; d Rome, July 23, 1601).

Italian engraver, publisher and draughtsman. Active from 1559 in Rome, his repertories of engravings reflect the antiquarian interests of his patrons, high clergy of the Counter-Reformation Church. The Antiquarum statuarum urbis Romae provides the first systematic publication of engravings of antique statues in public and private, mostly clerical, collections in Rome. Printed between c. 1560 and 1594 in a series of small editions, its number of plates increased from 58 to 200. The representations of the statues are accurate, showing the degree of restoration. Latin captions give their names and locations, which in later editions reflect changes of address. Cavalieri’s plates were also reprinted in the 17th century. Ashby described each standard edition by Cavalieri and his followers and tabled the plates of the various editions, including captions and present locations of the statues. Many extant copies vary from the standard editions, as customers chose loose plates to bind with a title-page (Gerlach, ...

(b 1476–8; d Milan, 1543).

Italian architect, theorist and painter. He was active mainly in Milan and is famous for publishing the first Italian translation, with commentary and illustrations, of Vitruvius (1521). The brief autobiography that this contains is also the principal source of information regarding Cesariano’s own life, education and aims.

Cesariano’s date of birth has been disputed, but it is now thought to be 1476–8, following the documentation from the time of his father’s death in 1482. In 1482 Cesariano was introduced to the court of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, where he came into contact with courtiers and artists and met Bramante, whom he named as his chief teacher. He doubtless observed the preparatory phases and building of S Maria presso S Satiro, the only work by Bramante in Milan to which he refers specifically in his commentary on Vitruvius. He could not have followed Bramante’s subsequent career, for he was forced to leave his home town ...

(fl 1558–74).

French painter, draughtsman, print publisher and possibly engraver. He was a painter working in Orléans and published about 20 prints, dated between 1558 and 1574, which he may have engraved himself. He may have gained his knowledge of the art of the School of Fontainebleau from Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (i), who was at one point established in Orléans. It is possible, however, that he worked at the château of Fontainebleau, since his engraving the Masquerade of Persepolis is an interpretation of a painting by Francesco Primaticcio in the chamber of the Duchesse d’Etampes there. Chartier also published and possibly engraved the same artist’s Ulysses Recognized by his Dog, the 34th picture in the Galerie d’Ulysse at Fontainebleau. Original prints by him, such as Blazons of Virtue and the Naked Man Walking on Hot Coals, are typical of the style of Fontainebleau and representative of provincial French Mannerism in their almost excessive and somewhat angular refinement....

(b Antwerp, c. 1560; d Antwerp, June 29, 1618).

Flemish draughtsman, engraver, print publisher and dealer. He was probably trained by the engraver and publisher Philip Galle, whose daughter Justa (d 1616) he married in 1586, and with whom he collaborated. In 1580 Adriaen was admitted to the Antwerp Guild of St Luke as a master’s son; in 1596 and 1597 he was respectively assistant dean and dean. Collaert produced a notable and extensive oeuvre of c. 600 engravings, including various series after his own drawings of birds, fish and animals (e.g. Animalium quadrupedum, Hollstein, nos 596–615; and Avium vivae icones, 1580; Hollstein, nos 616–47). Also after his own designs are the series of engravings of the Four Elements (pubd by himself; Hollstein, nos 453–6) and Flowers (pubd by Theodoor Galle; Hollstein, nos 679–702). All these rather uneven compositions are characterized by the faithful representation of nature. Collaert’s own compositions often include decorative borders consisting of flowers, animals and grotesques. This suggests he was important as a designer of ornament. However, by far the majority of his work comprises engravings after other Netherlandish artists, including ...

(b Amsterdam, 1522; d Gouda, Oct 29, 1590).

Dutch printmaker, poet, writer, theologian and philosopher. His work as a printmaker began in Haarlem in 1547, when he made a woodcut for a lottery poster after a design of Maarten van Heemskerck. From then until 1559 Coornhert worked as Heemskerck’s principal engraver. Initially he etched his plates, but during the 1550s he turned to engraving. He was possibly also responsible for the woodcuts after Heemskerck and the publication of Heemskerck’s early prints. In addition, he engraved designs by Willem Thibaut (1524–97) in 1556–7, Lambert Lombard in 1556 and Frans Floris in 1554–7. During this period Philip Galle was his pupil. In 1560 Coornhert temporarily stopped his engraving activities, set up a print publishing house, became a clerk and devoted himself to his literary work. In 1567 he was arrested for political reasons but managed to escape to Cologne in 1568. During his exile, which lasted until 1576...

[Cornelio]

(b Hoorn, nr Alkmaar, 1533; d Rome, before April 22, 1578).

North Netherlandish engraver and draughtsman, active in Flanders and Italy. His first documented works are a series of engravings issued by the Antwerp publisher Hieronymous Cock, beginning c. 1553. Cort may have been an apprentice within Cock’s establishment, as none of these prints was inscribed with his name until after the plates had passed out of Cock’s hands. A letter of 1567 to Titian from the Netherlandish writer and painter Domenicus Lampsonius (1532–99) describes Cock as Cort’s master. By 1560 Cort had developed a bold and strongly modelled sculptural style of engraving, influenced in part by the Italian Giorgio Ghisi, who worked for Cock between 1550 and 1555. Cort was particularly successful in reproducing the Italianate figure compositions of Frans Floris, after whom he engraved more than 50 prints, notably the Liberal Arts (seven prints; 1565) and the Labours of Hercules (ten prints; 1565). He also reproduced compositions by ...