Ever since the days of antiquity it had been the practice of metal-workers to cut decorative designs into the surface of the metal. Armorers and goldsmiths practiced this art of engraving in mediæval and Renaissance times. For our present purposes the absorbing question is this: How did the idea of printing from this decorated metal first suggest itself? We may get a clue by watching the engraver at work. With the graver he cuts a maze of lines into the metal; it is almost impossible to see the design owing to the glitter of each new-cut furrow. This troubles the engraver himself, and in order to see just what he has done, he smears the plate over with a mixture of lamp-black and oil, rubbing it well into the furrows. Then he wipes the plate clean, and now the design stands out plainly in black lines upon the shining metal surface. If he were now to take a piece of paper and press it against the plate, the black color in the furrows would adhere to the paper, and every line cut into the metal would be reproduced there. In such an accidental way, no doubt, the possibility of obtaining impressions from intaglio plates became known some time about or before the middle of the fifteenth century. But, of course, such an impression taken by hand pressure is bound to be very imperfect, and it may have been some time before some goldsmith thought it worth while to experiment with these printing possibilities. At first impressions may have seemed useful as guides for further work on the metal, or they may have served as memoranda of work done and delivered. As a matter of fact, goldsmiths did make use of this new-found mode of printing, and took impressions from their small decorative niello plates, before filling in the engraved lines with the final black enamel,--the “nigellum.” If woodcut were dubbed the democrat among the graphic arts, certainly engraving must be called the aristocrat of the family. It originates in the goldsmith’s workshop, amidst a guild of skilled designers, who not unfrequently practice painting together with their craft. No wonder that in such hands engraving should shape itself along artistic lines from the start. In Germany engraving finds a ready welcome among other manifestations of an art essentially of the town, of the burgher, while the art of the Italian quattrocento celebrates its great triumphs in the erection or adornment of sumptuous edifices, under the fostering care of princes and prelates. The German naïvely depicts, with minute precision, the scenes and environments of his homely sphere; all subjects, whatever their time or country, are shifted into the familiar setting of his own time and his own surroundings. Hence we see the crucifixion taking place in a clearing amidst firs; we find German and Dutch burghers in the scenes of the Passion, or kneeling in adoration--as Magi--before the new-born Child.