works beautiful. [Illustration: FIG. 34.--Dante and Beatrice. From the Dante of 1520. Venice.] [Illustration: FIG. 35.--St. Jerome Commending the Hermit’s Life. From “Epistole di San Hieronymo.” Ferrara, 1497.] [Illustration: FIG. 36.--St. Francis and the Beggar. From the “Catalogus Sanctorum.” Venice, 1506.] [Illustration: FIG. 37.--The Translation of St. Nicolas. From the “Catalogus Sanctorum.” Venice, 1506.] To the Italian love of color is due the development of what is known as engraving in chiaroscuro, a process which, although it had been practised in Germany since 1506, was claimed as a new invention by Ugo da Carpi (1460-1523), at Venice, in 1516, and was carried by the Italians to the highest point of perfection which it reached in the sixteenth century. It was an attempt to imitate the results of painting; two, and sometimes several, blocks were used in the process; on the first the outlines and heavy shadows of the design were engraved, and a proof was taken off; on the second block the lighter parts of the design were engraved, and an impression was taken off from this on the same print in a different color, or, at least, in a color of different intensity; thus the original proof was overlaid with different tints by successive impressions from different blocks, and a variety of shades was obtained in the finished engraving, analogous to those which the painter gets by laying flat tints over each other with the brush. Great care had to be taken in laying the original proof down on the second block, so that the lines of the design should fall in exactly the same position as in the first block; it is owing to a lack of exactness in this superposition of the proof on the later blocks that some of these engravings are so displeasing. There was considerable variety in the detail of the process. Sometimes the impression from the outline block was taken last; sometimes the different impressions were taken off in different colors, but usually in the same color of different intensities; sometimes the impressions were taken off on colored paper. The Italians used four blocks at an early time, and were able to imitate water-colors with some success. All of their prints in this kind are marked by more artistic feeling and skill than those of the Germans, even when the latter are by masters. This application of the art, however, is not a true development, and really lies outside its province. [Illustration: FIG. 38--Romoaldus, the Abbot. From the “Catalogus Sanctorum.” Venice, 1506.] V. _ALBERT DÜRER AND HIS SUCCESSORS._ [Illustration: A FIG. 39.--From an Italian Alphabet of the 16th Century.]