VALESIO (or Valegio) Francesco

(Verona ca. 1570 – ca. 1650)

Italian painter, draftsman, engraver and printer mainly active in Venice, where he opened a shop to sell prints in Spadaria “to the sign of Fate”.
He had a long association with the printer Catarino Doino, with whom he made artistic editions and collaborated to illustrate books of various kind with engravings. He often worked with other printers publishing geographical maps, representations of Conclaves, landscapes and subjects of his own invention.
The most challenging chalcographic work he left to us is the ‘Collection of the most illustrious and famous cities of the world’ to which Francesco contributed with 112 engravings, while more than other 322 have been performed by other engravers, among which many of Martino Rota (1520-1583).
The copperplates engraved by Valesio had a long life and will be printed again in 1713 in the work ‘Universus Terrarum Orbis’ by Raffaello Savonarola (1680 – 1748).
Francesco Valesio is a very significant figure in the calcographic editorial scene of Venice between the 16th and 17th centuries.