ABSTRACT
Recent research has helped to clarify the career of Maso Finiguerra (1426-1464), who was heralded by Vasari as the inventor of engraving, but who, nevertheless, remains a much discussed, mysterious figure. 1 Despite his brief life (he died in 1464 at the relatively young age of 38), Finiguerra's influence was enormous in many media. No one can convincingly attribute any print to him, yet most early Florentine printmakers were associated with him and his shop, and early Italian prints in both the so-called Fine and Broad Manners were influenced by his style, technique and designs. 2 The purpose of this paper is to study Finiguerra's large corpus of drawings, which was the fundamental part of his output, and to relate them to his work in other media. Although the organization of his workshop resembled that of other contemporary artists' botteghe, and his shop's drawings have much in common with those associated with the workshops of Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Veneziano, and Antonio Pollaiuolo, 3 I hope to show that it was the clarity of Finiguerra's designs which led to his exceptionally wide-ranging influence beyond the short span of his career. Assistants and artists with similar interests could collaborate efficiently with him and transfer his ideas into those other media which also depended on the effective use of contour lines. Finiguerra's drawing style was inseparable from his work as a goldsmith and niellist; his skills encouraged his followers to embark on printmaking, the process with which his name will always be associated.
