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[Breit, Johannes; Brit, Johannes]

(fl Venice, 1530–50).

Woodcutter of German origin, active in Italy. His first work in Venice was the illustration of Petrarca spirituale by Girolamo Malipiero, published by Francesco Marcolini in 1536. In 1543 the inscription In Vinegia per Giovanni Britto Intagliatore… appears in the colophon of La congiuratione de Gheldresi contro la città Danversa by Joannes Servilius (Florence, Bib. N. Cent.), an unillustrated book printed by Marcolini, but there is no documentary evidence that Britto designed the fount, and his relationship with Marcolini is unclear. Among his works are several woodcuts derived from works by Titian, for example the Adoration of the Shepherds (see 1976 exh. cat., no. 44), two portraits of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1976 exh. cat., nos 46; inspired by a model drawn by Titian) and 47 (known only from a copy in the British Museum, London, MS. 1866-7-14-31)) and a Self-portrait of Titian (1976 exh. cat., no. 45) signed ...

(b Bologna, c. 1574; d Bologna, 1623).

Italian painter, draughtsman and engraver. He studied with Bartolomeo Passerotti and afterwards at the Accademia degli Incamminati, founded by the Carracci, where he participated in group projects supervised by Ludovico Carracci. These included frescoes (c. 1598–1600) in the Palazzo Fava in Bologna depicting scenes from the Aeneid (here it seems that he worked on the last room, in collaboration with Leonello Spada); decorations (c. 1600) in the oratory of S Maria dell’Orazione annexed to the oratory of S Colombano, Bologna (Road to Calvary); and others (1604–05; almost invisible) in the octagonal cloister of the monastery of S Michele in Bosco, Bologna (Three Stories of St Benedict). He was left in charge of the workshop while Ludovico made a brief visit to Rome in 1602, suggesting that he held a prestigious position (although the best pupils had by then already left). Brizio continued to work with ...

(b ?Fulda, c. 1500; d ?Erfurt, 1554 or after).

German painter, draughtsman, engraver and woodcut designer. He worked in Fulda from c. 1520 to the mid-1540s, as is known from a series of dated paintings and copper engravings, including portraits of distinguished citizens of Fulda. Of the few surviving portraits, mainly from the 1520s, only one, that of Chancellor Johannes von Othera (1536; Switzerland, priv. col.), is signed with his full name. All have brownish flesh tones and a green background and are typified by rather angular faces, a certain stiffness and an interest in fine materials. A group of portraits bearing the monogram hb and a griffin’s head and also dating from the 1520s, which has been associated with this series, cannot be attributed to Brosamer with certainty; they mostly represent leading citizens of Nuremberg and are closer to Lucas Cranach (i) in character.

Brosamer was specifically described as Johannes Brosamer Fuldae degens, on an engraving of the ...

(fl ?c. Strasbourg, 1559–96).

German draughtsman and engraver. He worked in the style of the Nuremberg Little Masters. His many known engravings (Bartsch names 111; Passavant, 134) include animal and fencing scenes, military figures (in individual pictures of 1559), Turkish figures, rustic genre scenes, allegories, coats of arms and ornaments. The cycle showing ...

(b Hanoversch Münden, 1599 or 1602; d Hanoversch Münden, 1669).

German engraver, draughtsman and painter. His presence in the northern Netherlands c. 1620 is suggested by the woodcut Holy Family under a Tree (Hollstein, no. 4), which renders a design taken from Abraham Bloemaert in a chiaroscuro produced with one line and two tone blocks—a technique developed by Hendrick Goltzius. Between 1623 and 1629–30 Büsinck lived in Paris, producing woodcuts for the publisher Melchior Tavernier (1564–1641) after drawings by Georges Lallemand. The Holy Family with the Infant St John (1623; h 3) shows a more Italian technique, restricting contours to the black line and placing less emphasis on the use of the tone blocks. Subsequent work, such as the Moses (h 1) and the Apostles series (h 5–19) after Lallemand, synthesizes the clear black outlines of the Italian tradition with a lively decorative sway characteristic of the Dutch 17th-century style; while the systematic layers of parallel lines and crosshatching used in the ...

(b Calcar [now Kalkar], ?1499; d Naples, ?1546).

North Netherlandish painter and draughtsman, active in Italy. He was a pupil of Titian’s in Venice, c. 1536 or 1537, though not necessarily the pupil referred to as ‘Stefano’ by Marcantonio Michiel in 1532. The only identifiable work by van Calcar mentioned in such early sources as Vasari, Lomazzo and van Mander is the series of designs for the highly influential woodcut illustrations in the anatomical treatise De humani corporis fabrica (Basle, 1543) by Andreas Vesalius, who held the chair of surgery in Padua from 1537; van Calcar’s precise share in the project, however, is not clear. The strongly Titianesque character of the illustrations coincides with another old tradition, which dates back at least to Annibal Caro in the 1540s, crediting Titian himself with the designs for the treatise.

The association between van Calcar and Vesalius is firmly documented in two earlier instances: one for the production, which van Calcar financed, of six woodcuts published in ...

[il Cremonese]

(b ?Cremona, c. 1595; d Ferrara, 1660).

Italian painter, draughtsman and etcher. His artistic formation was complex. He knew contemporary Emilian art, from Giacomo Cavedoni to Lionello Spada and Guercino, and was intensely interested in 16th-century painters from Venice and the Po Valley, ranging from Giorgione to Titian, from Altobello Meloni to Romanino and of course Dosso Dossi. Caletti was mainly interested, as was Pietro della Vecchia, in a revival of 16th-century Venetian art, and, like della Vecchia, although at times he produced forgeries of 16th-century pictures, he more often interpreted such sources with irony and powerful emotion, as in the St Sebastian (Cento, Taddei priv. col.), which is modelled on Titian’s figure of St Sebastian in the Averoldi polyptych of the Resurrection (1522; Brescia, SS Nazaro and Celso).

In a rare public commission, a depiction of St Mark (c. 1630; Ferrara, Pin. N.), Caletti grew closer to Guercino. He was attracted by the bold Venetian colour of Guercino’s early manner, the influence of which is apparent in this work and in ...

(b Nancy, March–Aug 1592; d Nancy, March 25, 1635).

French etcher, engraver and draughtsman. He was one of the most accomplished printmakers in the Western tradition and one of the major exponents of the Mannerist style in the early 17th century. His often fantastic compositions combine grotesque and elegant elements in a compelling and personal manner. He greatly advanced both the technical and the aesthetic possibilities of etching through his invention of a chip-resistant ground for copperplates and his consummate skill in making repeated bitings of a single plate.

Callot was the son of a herald to Charles III, Duke of Lorraine. In 1607 he entered into a four-year apprenticeship with Domange Crocq (fl 1608–34; d 1637), a medallist in Nancy, but may have left for Rome before 1611. His earliest known print is an engraving of Charles III dated 1607 (see Lieure, no. 1). According to Félibien and others, he became an apprentice in Rome to the engraver ...

(b Borgo San Sepolcro, c. 1582; bur Florence, 1656).

Italian etcher and draughtsman. He did not study at the ‘academy’ of Giulio Parigi in Florence, as has been claimed, although he did collaborate with the architect in 1608 when he engraved prints of two of Parigi’s theatre sets. His first documented work is from 1603, the date of a series of landscape etchings. Northern influences in his early prints can be traced to Paul Bril, but his way of creating perspective by the intensification of shadow is reminiscent of Antonio Tempesta. It is significant that Cantagallina was one of the first artists to abandon the late-Mannerist vision of nature as fantastic and frightening for a genuine interest in themes from daily life. Among his most notable drawings are the splendid Village Piazza (1633; Princeton U., NJ, A. Mus.) and the large View of Siena (Florence, Uffizi). In 1612–13 he was in the Netherlands, where he produced such detailed drawings as the ...

[il Pesarese]

(b Pesaro, bapt Aug 21, 1612; d Verona, Oct 15, 1648).

Italian painter and engraver. He was one of the most eminent pupils of Guido Reni and one of the most gifted engravers in the tradition of the Carracci. He had a strong personality and developed a highly original style, which united aspects of Bolognese classicism with a bold naturalism.

Cantarini was the son of a merchant. He first trained with the Late Mannerist painter Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi (c. 1570–c. 1640), a follower of Federico Zuccari. He made a brief visit to Venice, where he absorbed the Venetian interest in light and colour. On his return to Pesaro he studied with Claudio Ridolfi (c. 1570–c. 1644), from whom he acquired an appreciation of the art of Federico Barocci. Barocci inspired the soft sfumato of the faces of his Virgins and saints, their idyllic mood and tender feeling, and the echoes of Raphael and early Correggio. Early on in his career, and still in the Marches, Cantarini saw the paintings of Orazio Gentileschi and Giovan Francesco Guerrieri, works that provoked his interest in a powerful naturalism, which is often apparent even in his more classical paintings. To this early period belong his paintings of ...

(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 Carpi, fl c. 1502–32).

Italian woodcutter. He trained as a type-founder and painter and c. 1509 moved to Venice, where he was employed for five or more years making woodcut book illustrations. Despite the menial nature of his work, which involved copying 15th-century designs, he broke with custom by signing his blocks. By 1515 he had secured an important commission from the Venetian publisher Bernardino Benalius to cut blocks for the Sacrifice of Abraham, (Passavant, VI, 223) a large black-and-white print on four joined sheets (Berlin, Altes Mus., 15.15). The composition is a pastiche of elements taken from Dürer and Titian and was designed perhaps by Ugo himself. Benalius sought a copyright for the print, and, probably under this influence, the following year Ugo sought the protection of the Venetian Senate for a colour-printing process he was now using, the chiaroscuro woodcut (see Woodcut, chiaroscuro, §1). He claimed to have invented the technique, although it was not this that was patented, as is often thought; rather he copyrighted all his chiaroscuro designs, past and future, doubtless due to the plagiarism of earlier works such as the ...

(b Venice, 1613; d Venice, Jan 29, 1678).

Italian painter and etcher. He was a pupil of Alessandro Varotari, through whom he was drawn to the early works of Titian, though he also responded to the Venetian Caravaggesque works of Carlo Saraceni and Jean Leclerc. Around 1631 he and Varotari made a brief visit to Bergamo, where he came into contact with Lombard art. On his return to Venice he became acquainted with Pietro della Vecchia; the etchings of Simone Cantarini and Odoardo Fialetti as well as Nicolas Poussin’s bacchic scenes (through the etchings of Pietro Testa) were further influences. In 1638 he settled in Vicenza and executed most of his work there. His first dated works are two vast lunettes, the Apotheosis of Vincenzo Dolfin (1647) and the Apotheosis of Girolamo Bragadin (1648; both Vicenza, Mus. Civ. A. & Stor.), which are close in style to similar works by Francesco Maffei. There followed the ...

(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 ...

[La Case, Nicolas de]

(fl 1543–8).

French engraver. All that is known besides the fact that he produced five engravings is that, as he himself indicated, he was from Lorraine and worked in Rome between 1543 and 1548, if not over a longer period. While there he Italianized his name, perhaps to recall the Florentine origins of his family. Della Casa may have gone to Rome at the same time as Nicolas Beatrizet, who was also from Lorraine. Like Beatrizet, he had some works published by Antonio Salamanca; again like Beatrizet, but some years before him, he engraved Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in 11 plates (1543–5; see Robert-Dumesnil, 1) and engraved a portrait of Henry II (1547; rd 5). There is also considerable vigour in his portraits of the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli (rd 2), of Emperor Charles V (after Enea Vico; rd 3) and of Cosimo de’ Medici (after Bandinelli; rd 4).

(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 Antrodoco, ?1622; d Rieti, ?1682).

Italian painter and engraver. After his education in Rieti, in the late 1640s Cesi went to Rome, where he became a pupil of Pietro da Cortona, who later introduced him to various patrons, including Queen Christina of Sweden and Cardinal Decio Azzolini, and supported his matriculation at the Accademia di S Luca in 1651. In 1657 Cesi took part in the decoration of the Galleria di Alessandro VII in the Palazzo Quirinale with his Judgement of Solomon (in situ). The fresco shows that he had not completely understood Baroque style but continued to build his compositions by adding figures, unable to reach a real unity. This weakness becomes more evident in his later works. In 1657, too, Cesi published his series of prints from Annibale Carracci’s frescoes in the Galleria Farnese (b. 21–64). The series after Pietro da Cortona’s decoration in the Galleria Pamphili (b. 65–80) came out in ...

(fl 1670; d Jan 30, 1707).

Polish goldsmith, engraver and writer. He produced engraved frontispieces for J. Liberius’s book The Blessed Virgin Mary’s Sea Star (1670) and his own work St Elegius’s Life … (1687). He is noted in the guild records from 1689. Few of his silver pieces have been identified, as he did not use name marks. The impressive monstrance in St Mary’s church in Kraków is attributed to him. Works that are certainly by him include the ‘robes’ on the painting of the Holy Virgin in the Dominican church in Kraków and the small plate from the tabernacle in St Anne’s, Kraków. Ceypler’s most important work is an octagonal reliquary for the head of St Jan Kanty (1695; Kraków, St Anne), signed in Latin. It was designed by King John III’s court painter, Jerzy Eleuter Szymonowicz-Siemiginowski (c. 1660–1711), and was executed by Ceypler with the help of his pupil, ...

(b Cuillé, Mayenne, 1680; d Paris, May 11, 1723).

French sculptor, designer and engraver. A pupil of François Girardon, he went to Potsdam in 1701, where he executed decorative sculpture for the Portal of Fortuna (destr. 1945) to the designs of Jean de Bodt. On his return to France he was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale in 1707 with a Death of Adonis (plaster; untraced), changing the subject for his morceau de réception of 1713 to the Death of Meleager, an affecting recumbent statuette (marble; Paris, Louvre). Chiefly active as a decorative sculptor specializing in trophies, he also contributed to the decoration of the chapel at the château of Versailles (1708–10; various works in situ), the choir of Notre-Dame, Paris (1711–14; destr.), the Tuileries Palace (1713; destr.), the Luxembourg Palace (1717; destr.), the Louvre (1717–22; destr.), the Château de la Muette, Paris (1720; destr.) and the church of St Roch, Paris (...

(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....