Cornelis Cort

Background

Cornelis Cort was born at Horn in Holland.

Education

Cornelis Cort studied engraving under Hieronymus Cockx of Antwerp.

Career

About 1565 Cornelis Cort went to Venice, where Titian employed him to execute the well-known copperplates of St Jerome in the Desert, the Magdalen, Prometheus, Diana and Actaeon, and Diana and Calisto.

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, afterwards imitated and perfected by Agostino Caracci in Italy and Nicolas de Bruyn in the Netherlands.

Before visiting Italy, Cort had been content to copy Michael Coxcie, F. Floris, Heemskerk, G. Mostaert, Bartholomaus Spranger and Stradan.

In Italy he gave circulation to the works of Raphael, Titian, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Baroccio, Giulio Clovio, Muziano and the Zuccari.

His connexion with Cockx and Titian is pleasantly illustrated in a letter addressed to the latter by Dominick Lampson of Liege in 1567.

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

In Italy he was known as Cornelio Fiammingo.

Achievements

• Cort's merit consists in the fact that with the help of advanced techniques buranday he began to give the prints more substantial than before, the size, greater freedom of touch and closeness to painting, what increased their spreading. The total number of his works about 150.