Antonio Zanchi e le sue “invenzioni per incisioni”. Il «dessegno» per la Venetia aflita del Boschini

Among the most active artists in Venice during the second half of the seventeenth century, Antonio Zanchi is considered to have one of the most relevant and important personalities. As a leading figure of the poetry of “Tenebrosi”, the artist is remembered as being extremely productive in the pictorial field, whereas very little is known about his commitment as peintre-graveur and the information about him is incomplete. This, however, was a part of his life that had considerable relevance within his career, although this has entered the general debate only in relatively recent times. After establishing the milestones of this re-discovery, the present essay will introduce Zanchi’s unedited works of art. Hence, the focus will be on the engraving placed at the beginning of Marco Boschini’s Venetia Aflita, a work that has already been widely studied but never as a part of Zanchi’s drawing catalogue. Moreover, the literary work in its entirety represents a fundamental literary source giving due weight to the artist as engraver.