L'uso delle fonti figurative nel Settecento: il caso del pittore Nicola Grassi

Using specific examples, this paper discusses how Nicola Grassi, along with other Vene-tian artists, used prints in order to produce his paintings. Among his contemporaries, a colleague, Antonio Balestra from Verona, was an important reference for Grassi. Moreo-ver, a decisive role was played by the Parmigianino’s drawings collection, bought in Lon-don in 1721 by the Venetian Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder. Until the third decade of the eighteenth century, Grassi used the prints from these sheets, while in the second part of his career he discovered other figurative sources