Leaving on one side the illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages (see ILLUMINATED MSS.) we start with the fact that illustration was coincident with the invention of printing. Italian art produced many fine examples, notably the outline illustrations to the _Poliphili Hypneratomachia_, printed by Aldus at Venice in the last year of the 15th century. Other early works exist, the products of unnamed artists of the French, German, Spanish and Italian schools; while of more singular importance, though not then brought into book form, were the illustrations to Dante's _Divine Comedy_ made by Botticelli at about the same period. The sudden development of engraving on metal and wood drew many painters of the Renaissance towards illustration as a further opportunity for the exercise of their powers; and the line-work, either original or engraved by others, of Pollajuolo, Mantegna, Michelangelo and Titian has its place in the gradual enlargement of illustrative art. The German school of the 16th century committed its energies even more vigorously to illustration; and many of its artists are now known chiefly through their engravings on wood or copper, a good proportion of which were done to the accompaniment of printed matter. The names of Dürer, Burgmair, Altdorfer and Holbein represent a school whose engraved illustrations possess qualities which have never been rivalled, and remain an invaluable aid to imitators of the present day. Progress in England. Illustration has generally flourished in any particular age in proportion to the health and vigour of the artistic productions in other kinds. No evident revival in painting has come about, no great school has existed during the last four centuries, which has not set its mark upon the illustration of the period and quickened it into a medium for true artistic expression. The etchers of the Low Countries during the 17th century, with Rembrandt at their head, were to a great extent illustrators in their choice of subjects. In France the period of Watteau and Fragonard gave rise to a school of delicately engraved illustration, exquisite in detail and invention. In England Hogarth came to be the founder of many new conditions, both in painting and illustration, and was followed by men of genius so distinct as Reynolds on the one side and Bewick on the other. With Reynolds one connects the illustrators and engravers for whom now Bartolozzi supplies a surviving name and an embodiment in his graceful but never quite English art. But it is from Thomas Bewick that the wonderfully consistent development of English illustration begins to date. Bewick marks an important period in the technical history of wood-engraving as the practical inventor of the "tint" and "white line" method of wood-cutting; but he also happened to be an artist. His artistic device was to give local colour and texture without shadow, securing thereby a precision of outline which allowed no form to be lost.