Antonio Fantuzzi

[11] He worked closely with Léon Davent, a French native who was one of the other leading Fontainebleau printmakers, who had presumably trained as a goldsmith and so an engraver.

In return Fantuzzi adopted a number of technical tricks developed by engravers and translatable to etching, very likely with instruction from Davent.

[13] Suzanne Boorsch says that his early style was "full of energy but lacked discipline, so that in some of the prints a violent light and strokes in many directions cause figures and grounds to be confused... His later works retain this liveliness but are calmer and more controlled".

There are a number of other etchings by Fantuzzi and others of the very complex frames in the gallery, all showing similar differences and inserted landscapes, indicating that they were following drawings prepared before the final designs were achieved.

[16] The "mildly licentious" lunette Mars and Venus Bathing of about 1543 was probably copying a painting by Primaticcio for the six-room "Appartement des Bains" (Bathroom Suite) at the palace, decorated in the 1540s and destroyed in 1697.

[22] The most productive printmakers were Davent, Fantuzzi, and Jean Mignon, followed by the "mysterious" artist known from his monogram as "Master I♀V" (♀ being the alchemical symbol for copper, from which the printing plates were made).

[23] The workshop seems to have been active between about 1542 and 1548 at the latest; Francis I of France died in March 1547, after which funding for the palace wound down, and the school dispersed.

"[30] A broadening market for prints preferred the "highly finished textures" of Nicolas Beatrizet, and later "proficient but ultimately uninspired" engravers such as René Boyvin and Pierre Milan.