Pietro Bettelini
Encyclopedia
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
, was born at Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
in 1763, and applied at an early age to the study of the art. He received instructions from Gandolfi
Ubaldo Gandolfi
Ubaldo Gandolfi was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque period, mainly active in and near Bologna.He was born in San Matteo della Decima and enrolled by the age of 17 at the Clementine Academy, where he apprenticed with Ercole Graziani the Younger, Felice Torelli, and Ercole Lelli...
and Bartolozzi
Francesco Bartolozzi
Francesco Bartolozzi was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London.He was born in Florence...
; but in his subsequent works he inclined more to the style of Raphael Morghen
Raffaello Sanzio Morghen
Raffaello Sanzio Morghen was an Italian engraver.He was born in Naples, apparently to a German family of engravers. He received his earliest instructions from his father, himself an engraver; but, to obtain more advanced training, he was placed as a pupil under the celebrated Giovanni Volpato...
. He died at Rome in 1828. He is particularly happy in his transcripts of light and elegant forms, and enters with much taste and spirit into the subject he copies. He does not aim at producing brilliant effects, but exercises his graver with care and delicacy, corresponding with the style of the original picture. In those of a sombre or forcible character he is not equally successful. He was held in high estimation by Thorwaldsen
Bertel Thorvaldsen
Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish-Icelandic sculptor of international fame, who spent most of his life in Italy . Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a Danish/Icelandic family of humble means, and was accepted to the Royal Academy of Arts when he was eleven years old...
, who employed him to engrave some of his finest works, both figures and bassi-rilievi
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
. His engraving of the 'Entombment,' by Andrea del Sarto
Andrea del Sarto
Andrea del Sarto was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori , his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci,...
, in the Florence Gallery
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
, exhibits all the beauties of the original, and may be quoted, not only as his masterpiece, but also among the finest examples of art. The following are a portion of his justly esteemed productions:
- Entombment; after Andrea del Sarto.
- Madonna col devoto; after the painting by Correggio, in the possession of the King of BavariaKing of BavariaKing of Bavaria was a title held by the hereditary Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria in the state known as the Kingdom of Bavaria from 1805 until 1918, when the kingdom was abolished...
. - Ecce Homo; after Correggio.
- St. John; after Domenichino.
- Sibylla Persica; after Guercino.
- Ascension of the Virgin; after GuidoGuido ReniGuido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style.-Biography:Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de’ Pozzi. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in that...
. - Madonna and sleeping Infant; after RaphaelRaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
. - Judgment of Solomon; after the same.
- Magdalene; after SchidoneBartolomeo SchedoniBartolomeo Schedoni was an Italian early Baroque painter from Reggio Emilia.-Biography:He was born in Modena, but moved to Parma with his father. Soon he was sent to be apprenticed under Federico Zuccari in Rome after 1598, with the sponsorship of Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma. He soon...
. - Maria div. Sapientiae; after TitianTitianTiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
. - The Virgin Mary reading a book; after the same.
- Portrait of GalileoGalileo GalileiGalileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
. - Portrait of MachiavelliNiccolò MachiavelliNiccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...
. - Portrait of PolizianoPolizianoAngelo Ambrogini, commonly known by his nickname, anglicized as Politian, Italian Poliziano, Latin Politianus was an Italian Renaissance classical scholar and poet, one of the revivers of Humanist Latin...
.