The Triumph of Chastity; she stands on a vase upon a chariot, before her kneels Cupid bound and blindfolded, the chariot is escorted by young women, leading them a maiden carrying a banner with the emblem of an ermine, illustration to Petrarch's 'Triumph of Chastity'

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.