In Italy it was otherwise. There, with a few signal exceptions, engraving was used merely as a convenient method of multiplying an existing design. It may be that we owe to this fact both the color of the ink used in these early Florentine prints, and the method of taking impressions. This would seem, in many cases, to be by rubbing rather than by the use of the roller press, which appears to have been known and used in the North substantially from the very beginning. The Florentine, aiming to duplicate a drawing in silver-point or wash, would naturally endeavor to approximate the color of his original. Consequently we do not find the lustrous black impressions, strongly printed, which are the prize of the collector of early German engravings. Vasari’s story of the invention of engraving by MASO FINIGUERRA (1426-1464) was long ago disproved, and for a time it seemed as though Finiguerra and his work were likely to be consigned to that limbo of the legendary from which Baldini--at one time accredited with many prints--is only just now emerging. Yet Finiguerra, although not the “inventor” of the art, is, beyond peradventure, the most important influence in early Italian engraving, not only on account of his own work on copper, but still more through the Picture-Chronicle, which served as an inspiration to the artists working in his School and continuing his tradition after his death. So that Vasari’s tale, though not accurate in the matter of fact, was veracious in the larger sense. [Illustration: ANONYMOUS FLORENTINE, XV CENTURY. PROFILE PORTRAIT OF A LADY Size of the original engraving, 8⅞ × 5⅝ inches In the Royal Print Room, Berlin] [Illustration: ANONYMOUS FLORENTINE, XV CENTURY. WILD ANIMALS HUNTING AND FIGHTING Size of the original engraving, 10⅛ × 14¾ inches In the British Museum] The Picture-Chronicle is a book of drawings illustrating the History of the World, and evidently proceeds from the hand and workshop of a Florentine goldsmith-engraver of about 1460. It was acquired by the British Museum from Mr. Ruskin in 1888. The drawings are in pen and ink and wash, often reinforced with open pen-shading like that imitated later by the Broad Manner engravers. At its best the work has the true early Renaissance combination of archaic strength with attractive naiveté--the ornamental detail carried out with a masterly power of pen, and with the patient delight of one who is by instinct and training above all things a jeweler.