Baccio Baldini

Baccio Baldini (c. 1436 – buried 12 December 1487) was an Italian goldsmith and engraver of the Renaissance, active in his native Florence. All that is known of Baldini's life, apart from the date of his burial in Florence,^[2] is what Vasari says of him: that Baldini was a goldsmith and pupil of Maso Finiguerra, the Florentine goldsmith who was, according to Vasari's incorrect claim,^[3] the inventor of engraving. Vasari says Baldini based all of his works on designs by Sandro Botticelli because he lacked disegno himself.^[4] Today Baldini is best remembered for his collaboration with Botticelli on the first printed Dante in 1481, where it is believed the painter supplied the drawings for Baldini to turn into engravings, but it does not seem to be the case that all his work was after Botticelli. He has long been attributed with a number of other engravings as the leading practitioner of the Florentine Fine Manner of engraving, this rather tentatively; he is often given a "workshop" or "circle" to ease uncertainty.^[5]

In total the group amounts to over 100 prints.^[6] They are "characterized by rather sharp, often deeply incised outlines: similar deeply-cut graver work for the features, for the ample ornament of the costumes, and for the architecture; and extremely fine lines, organized into rather fuzzy cross-hatching, for the shading, which often gives the draperies an almost furry look". This technique was designed to capture the quality of pen and wash drawings, and he may be attributed with drawings as well.^[7]

He, or his circle, have been attributed with the Florentine Picture-Chronicle in the British Museum, an album of 55 drawings of scenes and figures of ancient history.^[8] Jay Levinson has also attributed to him several of the Otto Prints "a group of delightful engravings, mostly in the round, showing amorous subjects or hunting scenes; they were intended to be pasted into gift boxes", which are also in the British Museum (they survive in unique impressions, presumably from a collection for customers to choose from).^[9] However, in 2017 the British Museum was not prepared to name Baldini as the artist of these, or any other works in their collection.^[10] Hugo Chapman points out that there is "no contemporary reference to Baldini making prints" at all,^[11] and Vasari was writing almost a century after his career is supposed to have begun.

Whoever the artists were, the prints attributed to Baldini and the drawings in the Florentine Picture-Chronicle share "a goldsmith-inspired predeliction for intricate surface pattern and ornament; a rather rudimentary grasp of perspective" (less so in some prints), and a dependence on "Finiguerra-inspired figure types".^[12]