Cornelis Cort was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 engraver and draughtsman

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

. He spent the last 12 years of his life in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, where he was known as Cornelio Fiammingo.

Biography

Born at Hoorn

Hoorn

-Cities :* Purmerend * Enkhuizen * Alkmaar * Amsterdam * Lelystad * Den Helder * Leeuwarden -Towns :* Edam...

 or Edam

Edam

Edam is a city in the Dutch province of Noord-Holland. Combined with Volendam, Edam forms the municipality of Edam-Volendam. Approximately 7,380 people live in Edam. The whole municipality of Edam-Volendam has 28,492 inhabitants...

, Cort may have been a pupil of Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert in the 1550s in Haarlem

Haarlem

Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...

. His first known engravings were printed in Antwerp around 1553, though it is thought that he remained working in the Northern Netherlands. The publisher was Hieronymous Cock, under whom Cort may have apprenticed as well. A letter (1567) from Dominicus Lampsonius

Dominicus Lampsonius

Dominicus Lampsonius , of Bruges and Liège, was a Flemish humanist, poet, and artist. Through his writings, a great deal is known about engravers and printers of the era...

 to the artist Titian

Titian

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...

 in fact described Cock as Cort's master. Plates Cort produced for Cock only were inscribed with Cort's name after he left Cock's school.

Cort moved to Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 and lived in the house of Titian in 1565 and 1566, where he produced engraving based on Titian's works. Among these are the well-known copperplates of "St Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

 in the Desert", the "Magdalen", "Prometheus

Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...

", "Diana and Actaeon

Diana and Actaeon (Titian)

Diana and Actaeon is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Titian, finished in 1556–1559, and is considered amongst Titian's greatest works. It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana meets Actaeon. In 2008–2009, the National Gallery, London and National Gallery of Scotland...

", and "Diana and Calisto

Callisto (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Callisto or Kallisto was a nymph of Artemis. Transformed into a bear and set among the stars, she was the bear-mother of the Arcadians, through her son Arcas.-Origin of the myth:...

". From Italy he wandered back to the Netherlands, but he returned to Venice soon after 1567, proceeding thence to Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

 and Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, where he produced engravings from all the great masters of the time.

At Rome he founded the well-known school in which, as Bartsch tells us, the simple line of Marcantonio was modified by a brilliant touch of the burin

Burin

Burin from the French burin meaning "cold chisel" has two specialised meanings for types of tools in English, one meaning a steel cutting tool which is the essential tool of engraving, and the other, in archaeology, meaning a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which was probably...

, afterwards imitated and perfected by Agostino Carracci

Agostino Carracci

Agostino Carracci was an Italian painter and printmaker. He was the brother of the more famous Annibale and cousin of Lodovico Carracci....

 in Italy and Nicolaes de Bruyn

Nicolaes de Bruyn

Nicolaes de Bruyn was the son of Abraham De Bruyn, and was born at Antwerp about 1570. Although he was instructed by his father in engraving, he did not follow his example, either in the style of his execution, or in the size of his plates. He appears to have studied and to have formed his manner...

 in the Netherlands. Before visiting Italy, Cort had been content to copy Michael Coxcie

Michael Coxcie

Michiel Coxie, Coxie also spelled Coxcie or Coxien, Latinised name Coxius was a Flemish painter who studied under Bernard van Orley, who probably induced him to visit the Italian peninsula....

, Frans Floris

Frans Floris

Frans Floris, or more correctly Frans de Vriendt, called Floris was a Flemish painter. He was a member of a large family trained to the study of art in Flanders.-Biography:...

, Heemskerk

Marten Jacobszoon Heemskerk van Veen

Maarten van Heemskerck or Marten Jacobsz Heemskerk van Veen was a Dutch portrait and religious painter, known for his depictions of the Seven Wonders of the World.-Biography:...

, Gillis Mostaert

Gillis Mostaert

Gillis Mostaert was a Southern Netherlandish painter.-Biography:According to Karel van Mander, Mostaert's father was from Hulst, near Antwerp. According to the RKD, he was a painter, but he sent his sons to his own father Jan Mostaert in Haarlem...

, Bartholomeus Spranger

Bartholomeus Spranger

Bartholomeus Spranger was a Flemish Northern Mannerist painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He was born in Antwerp in the Habsburg Netherlands .-Biography:...

 and Stradanus

Stradanus

Giovanni Stradano or Jan Van der Straet or van der Straat or Stradanus or Stratesis was a Flanders-born mannerist artist active mainly in 16th century Florence.-Biography:...

. In Italy he gave circulation to the works of Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

, Titian, Polidoro da Caravaggio

Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio

Polidoro Caldara, usually known as Polidoro da Caravaggio was an Italian painter of the Mannerist period, "arguably the most gifted and certainly the least conventional of Raphael's pupils", who was best known for his now-vanished paintings on the facades of Roman houses...

, Baroccio

Federico Barocci

Federico Barocci was an Italian Renaissance painter and printmaker. His original name was Federico Fiori, and he was nicknamed Il Baroccio, which still in northwestern Italian dialects means a two wheel cart drawn by oxen...

, Giulio Clovio, Muziano

Girolamo Muziano

Girolamo Muziano , was an Italian painter, active in a late-Renaissance or Mannerism style. He was born in Acquafredda, near Brescia, but active mainly in Rome....

 and the Zuccari.

He visited 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....

 between 1569 and 1571 probably working for the Medici

Medici

The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

 family and returned to Titian in Venice in 1571-1572. He spent the last year of his life in Rome, where he died. His connection with Cock and Titian is pleasantly illustrated in a letter addressed to the latter by Dominick Lampson

Dominicus Lampsonius

Dominicus Lampsonius , of Bruges and Liège, was a Flemish humanist, poet, and artist. Through his writings, a great deal is known about engravers and printers of the era...

 of Liège in 1567. Cort is said to have engraved upwards of one hundred and fifty-one plates.

The art collector George Cumberland

George Cumberland

George Cumberland was an English art collector, writer and poet. He was a lifelong friend and supporter of William Blake, and like him was an experimental printmaker. He was also an amateur watercolourist, and one of the earliest members of the Bristol School of artists...

 wrote in 1827 that