Allegory of the Psalm of David; Misericordia seated to the left feeding four children with milk from her breast, Truth seated to the right holding an open book in her left hand and her foot resting on a globe, Justice stands behind to the left holding a pair of scales and embracing Peace who stands to the right holding a caduceus

Printmaking in woodcut and engraving came to Northern Italy within a few decades of their invention north of the Alps. Engraving probably came first to Florence in the 1440s, the goldsmith Maso Finiguerra (1426–64) used the technique. Italian engraving caught the very early Renaissance, 1460–1490. Print copying was a widely accepted practice, as well as copying of paintings viewed as images in their own right.