Martin Schongauer, like the Master of 1466, at once raised up both imitators and rivals in Munich, in Mecheln in Westphalia, in Nuremberg, and in many other towns in the German States. His influence and reputation extended even beyond the borders of Germany; and it was not the artists of the Low Countries alone who sought to profit by his example. In Florence young Michelangelo did not disdain to study, nor even to copy him, for he painted a "Temptation of St. Anthony," after Schongauer's engraving. Italian miniature painters and engravers, Gherardo and Nicoletto da Modena, amongst others, reproduced many of his prints. The very figures and ornamentation which decorate the "Books of Hours," published by Simon Vostre and Hardouin at the beginning of the sixteenth century, show that in the France of that period a zeal for imitation of the master's manner was not always restrained by the fear of actual plagiarism. But the influence of Martin Schongauer on the progress of art and the talent of artists was more extended and decided in Germany itself. Amongst those who most obediently submitted to, and who best knew how to profit by, that example, we need only mention Bartholomew Schön, Franz von Bocholt, Wenceslas of Olmütz, Israel van Mechenen, Glockenton, and lastly, the engraver with the monogram "B M," whose most important work, the "Judgment of Solomon," was perhaps engraved from a picture by Martin Schongauer, who like Mantegna, like Pollajuolo, and indeed like the majority of early engravers, was not only a painter, but a singularly good one. His painted pictures still belonging to the town of Colmar, and, setting aside his rare talent as an engraver, even the little "Death of the Virgin," which has been the property of the London National Gallery since 1860, would be enough to establish his reputation.[20] [Illustration: FIG. 37.--MARTIN SCHONGAUER. St. Anthony.] The importance of such an artist is in every respect that of the leader of a school and a master in the strictest acceptation of the word. Martin Schongauer in his own person, and through the talent he helped to foster, did so much, and so greatly honoured his country, that it is only just to regard him as one of the most glorious representatives of national art, and to place his name beside those of Albert Dürer and Holbein, as the three men in whom the essential qualities and characteristics of the German genius have been most typically represented. CHAPTER IV. LINE ENGRAVING AND WOOD ENGRAVING IN GERMANY AND ITALY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.