The invention of the art of taking impressions on paper from an engraved plate is, on the authority of Vasari, usually ascribed to Tommaso Finiguerra, a celebrated enameller and chaser, of Florence, who, having occasion to make a sulphur cast from a piece of plate in 1460, observed that the charcoal dust and dirt which had collected in the engraved lines of the metal were brought off upon the sulphur, so as to present a counterpart of his work. Struck by the appearance, he tried to produce a similar effect by passing moistened paper over the plate, under pressure from a roller; and the experiment succeeded. This is a natural and a probable account; from the earliest antiquity the graver has been employed in embellishing armour, vessels of the precious metals, and other valuable articles of use and ornament; and it is certain that the earliest Italian engravers were, by profession, workers in gold and silver. It is strange indeed that so obvious an extension of the uses of engraving should not have been observed sooner; but all experience teaches us that a very important discovery may long lie very near the surface, before it meets with an observer sufficiently clear-sighted or fortunate to bring it to light. The Germans, however, contest priority of invention in this art with the Italians. The matter is of no great importance, even to the national fame of the two lands. Those prints which date before Albert Durer in the one, and before Marc Antonio in the other, possess little value either for their design or their execution, however precious they may be to collectors for their rarity, or to antiquaries and artists as historical records of the art. [Illustration: _Engraved by W. Holl._ MARC ANTONIO RAIMONDI. _From a Print by Rosaspina, after a Picture by Raphael._ Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. _London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._ ] Marc Antonio Raimondi was born at Bologna, about the year 1488: the dates of his birth and death are not mentioned by Vasari, who is the sole original authority for the private history of this artist. He learnt the art of design from Francesco Francia, or Raibolini, after whom he has sometimes been denominated Marc Antonio di Francia: his first instructor in the use of the graver is said to have been a goldsmith. And as Hogarth set out on his career of art by ornamenting tankards and shop-bills, so Marc Antonio at first gained his livelihood as a jeweller’s workman. The first of his copper-plates which bears a date represents the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and was engraved in 1505[1]; but he is said to have executed others before it, among which we find one only, the Four Horsemen, mentioned by name. Footnote 1: Heinekin says 1502, by mistake. The print of Apollo and Hyacinth bears also the date of 1505.