La linea d’acqua: sulla stamperia Pasquali come laboratorio d’incisione di Canaletto e Visentini = The water line: On the Pasquali print shop as an engraving workshop of Canaletto and Visentini

In the 1730s, a case of ‘cross-pollination’ took place in the print shop and bookstore run by Giambattista Pasquali for Joseph Smith: two series created in the same period functioned as training in printmaking for their respective authors, Antonio Visentini and Antonio Canal, called Canaletto. This article reconsiders Federico Montecuccoli degli Erri’s use of biological metaphors to describe the collaboration between Visentini and Canaletto in light of more general questions about the authorship of prints. To do so, it addresses the difficult identification of the place where these authors worked and the modern development of a critical language for printmaking.