The Art of Wood-engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth Century by Friedrich ( Lippmann

Author:Friedrich ( Lippmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: B. Quaritch
Published: 1888-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

The view of Borne in Ihe "Supplemenlum Chronic»nini" of 1490.

the date of the painting, we only know that it cannot have been executed before 1^34, as it exhibits the statues of SS. Peter and Paul, which were erected in that year on the parapet of the bridge of Sant' Angelo, on the left bank of the river. The view in the Nuremberg Chronicle shows the bridge in its older state, with two

small cupolated buildings on the spot which was afterwards occupied by the statues. It is similarly given in the woodcut of the Supplementum.

De' Rossi inclines apparently to the opinion that the Mantuan picture was copied from an older design, and that the introduction of the change which had been effected in the meanwhile with regard to the bridge, is due to the copyist; while the artists of the Nuremberg Chronicle took the earlier picture for their model, or, to speak more correctly, selected a portion of the original panorama. Thus, the Nuremberg woodcut exhibits only the district which extends from the Porta del Popolo to the Colosseum, while Rusconi's picture gives the entire space comprised within the walls of the city, and portion of the Campagna beyond them. The designer of the original is supposed by De' Rossi to have been identical with the man who, under the pseudonym of "Prospettivo Milanese Depictore", composed in the fifteenth century a poem upon Rome.^

The illustration in the Nuremberg Chronicle, and that in the Supplementuntj contain precisely the same portion of the city, and are taken from the same point of view. It appears certain that they were copied from an identical original. The difference in details is of no essential importance, considering the loose and careless manner in which those cuts were executed, and however unlike they may seem in their general aspect. The existence of the print in the Supplementum serves to fix the date of the lost original design as earlier than 1490. We may however conjecture that it was no painting which furnished that original. The model which was followed in the Nuremberg and the Supplementum illustrations, must assuredly have been a woodcut, or a copper-engraving, since works of painting are usually unique, and the dozen or so of book-

^ The only known copy of the early undated edition of this poem, is in the Monte Cassino library. — See Govi (Gilberto) Atti dclla Reale Accademia de' Lincei, Tom. 3, Serie II, 1876. 410. — From its type, it appears to have been printed at Milan, and was, in any case, a fifteenth century production. There is a woodcut at the beginning, of a naked human figure, drawing, with a compass, geometrical diagrams upon the earth, with a background formed by edifices of classical architecture. It is in outline, well designed and fairly well executed; and is also suggestive of Milanese origin. (Reproduced by Govi).

■jC) EARLY WOODCUT VIEWS OF ROME

illustrators connected with the two Chronicles, would scarcely have busied themselves with any other material than what was easily attainable and easily manageable.

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