Carlo Lasinio · Pope Pius VII · Vincenzo de Bonis

**Carlo Lasinio (1759–1838)** was an Italian engraver whose meticulous reproductions of Renaissance frescoes helped preserve and popularize Italy’s artistic heritage during a turbulent era. Born in Treviso on 10 February 1759, he began his artistic training as a painter at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. After relocating to Florence in 1778, he shifted his focus decisively toward printmaking, developing exceptional skill in etching and engraving.

Lasinio quickly established his reputation with ambitious series of etchings, including major projects in 1787 and 1789 that reproduced celebrated frescoes and oil paintings from Florence. He taught engraving at the Accademia in Florence and was appointed professor there in 1800. In 1807 he moved to Pisa, where he served as conservatore of the Camposanto monumentale, working tirelessly to safeguard its precious frescoes from the ravages of the Napoleonic Wars. Beginning in 1812, he produced his most influential publication, *Pitture a fresco del Campo Santo di Pisa*, a comprehensive series of large etchings rendered in the sharply defined “outline style” that became popular in the early nineteenth century.

These works, along with his earlier series of Florentine frescoes and depictions of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century masters, proved enormously significant. They provided an invaluable visual record of artworks later devastated by World War II bombing and exerted a profound influence on nineteenth-century European art, notably inspiring the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in Britain to turn away from High Renaissance ideals toward earlier Italian masters. Lasinio also founded the Academy in Pisa and created original portraits of eminent Italians, including Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. His son, Giovanni Paolo Lasinio, followed in his footsteps as an engraver. Carlo Lasinio died in Pisa on 29 March 1838, leaving a legacy as one of Italy’s foremost reproductive printmakers whose careful documentation continues to shape our understanding of Renaissance art.