Dottorato di Ricerca in storia dell'arte

“Il étoit jeune et promettoit…” : Migration routes of the engraver Jean Baron in the Seventeenth century’s Europe.

Monographic study of Jean Baron, engraver-interpreter « vagabond », who shared his short life (Toulouse 1628-Rome 1660) between France and Italy among Dutch engravers circles. Even though he has a catalogue of more than 160 pieces, he suffers since 400 years as a result of his condition of engraver of translation. During his travels he met some of the greatest artistic, scientific or religious figures of the Seventeenth century. He evolves inside the rich and complex world of books, among the great European printing presses and for the translation of illustrations. The study of his case allows to discover an actor of the international artistic network that unite the greatest European capitals of the engraving, lets us to revalue the parts of the engraving of translation and the one of its representatives in the process of trans-border diffusion of artistic models, and enables to take a new look on the age of transition between the old artistic corporations and the modern French Royal Academy of Fine Arts.