Il sonno della Storia produce miti Il Seicento e le origini della xilografia

The scarce space that Giorgio Vasari dedicates in his Vite to the woodcut technique meant a long exclusion of wood engraving from Italian artistic historiography, a silence that survived its author for at least two centuries. Only from the second half of the 18th century did a debate on the origins of woodcut begin to develop in Italy. However, the void of historiography was partly filled between the 16th and 17th centuries by significant episodes of interest in 15th-century woodcut, linked not so much to their artistic aspect, but rather to their devotional one. The analysis of a series of cases highlights a certain need at the time to deal with the origins of woodcut. Despite the silence of the official treatises, responses offered often surprising results.