Antonio Bettini was an Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 clergyman

Clergy

Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

 and writer.

Bettini was born in Siena

Siena

Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...

 in 1396. He joined the convent of San Girolamo in Siena in 1439 and worked closely with Pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

 Pius II. Pius made Bettini bishop of Foligno in 1461. For Pope Sixtus IV, Bettini may have traveled to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 (1474) and Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 (1481). He retired to his original convent in Siena in 1486 and died a year later. Bettini was revered by later biographers and sometimes referred to as "Beato" (Blessed) (a step toward canonization

Canonization

Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...

), but this designation was never church-sanctioned.

Bettini was known as a prolific writer. His Monte Santo di Dio (1477) described how one could use science and virtue

Virtue

Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....

 to reach closer to God. This work, printed in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 by Nicolaus Laurentii

Nicolaus Laurentii

Nicolaus Laurentii was a printer living in Florence, Italy in the late fifteenth century. He was the first printer to use copper plate engravings and printed a number of works of importance to the Italian Renaissance....

 is especially notable in that it is possibly the first printed work to contain copper plate engraving

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...

s. These were executed by Baccio Baldini

Baccio Baldini

Baccio Baldini was an Italian engraver of the Renaissance, active in his native Florence.-Biography:Little is known of Baldini's life...

, based on designs by Botticelli.