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146 was first employed as an aid to scientific exposition, were designed in Venice by Jean Calcar, a pupil of Titian, and are of extraordinary merit. Finally, in the cuts by Cesare Vecellio (1550–1606) for the volume entitled Habiti Antiche e Moderne, published in 1590, Venetian wood-engraving produced its last excellent work—so excellent, indeed, that the designs have been attributed to Titian himself, who was the uncle of Vecellio.

The Italians devoted themselves with especial ardor to wood-engraving in chiaroscuro, and from the time when Ugo da Carpi introduced it in Venice it was practised by many artists. Nearly all of those designers who have been mentioned left works in chiaroscuro engraving as well as in the ordinary manner. Beside them, Antonio da Trento (c. 1530), Giuseppe Nicolo (c. 1525), Andrea Andreani (c. 1600), and Bartolemeo Coriolano (c. 1635) produced chiaroscuro engravings which are now much valued and sought for by collectors of prints. The Italian love of color led these artists into this application of wood-engraving, which must be regarded as a wrongly-directed and unfruitful effort of the art to obtain results beyond its powers. The Italians had been the first to discover the capacity of wood-engraving as an art of design, but they never developed it as it was developed in Germany; when they gave up the early simple manner in which they had achieved great results, and began to follow the later manner, the great age of Italy was near its close, and the arts felt the weakening influences of the rapid decline in the vigor of society. At Venice the arts remained for a while longer powerful and illustrious, and wood-engraving shared in the excellence which characterized all the artistic work of that city; but the place