page_title: Jacopo Caraglio
section_title: Poland
hierarchical_section_title: Jacopo Caraglio / Life / Poland
context_page_description: Jacopo Caraglio, Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio or Gian Giacomo Caraglio known also as Jacobus Parmensis and Jacobus Veronensis was an Italian engraver, goldsmith and medallist, born at Verona or Parma. His career falls easily into two rather different halves: he worked in Rome from 1526 or earlier as an engraver in collaboration with leading artists, and then in Venice, before moving to spend the rest of his life as a court goldsmith in Poland, where he died.
  In Italy, he was one of the first reproductive printmakers, rendering versions of specially made drawings or paintings rather than creating new works for the print medium, although detailed comparison of surviving drawings with the prints made from them show he had input into the creative process. He was in Rome at the brief period when the small but flourishing printmaking industry created by Raphael working with engravers to diffuse his work had been disrupted by Raphael's sudden death in 1520, cutting off the supply of new designs, and other artists were recruited fill the gap.
  A.
context_section_description: In 1539 he is recorded at the Polish court of Sigismund I. He had probably been introduced there through Pietro Aretino, a friend in Venice, and his contacts with the circle of the Italian-born Polish Queen Bona Sforza (1494–1557), such as Allesandro Pessenti, Bona's organist.  In Poland he mostly worked for the court on medals, gems and goldsmithing rather than printmaking.  Vasari presents this as, in Caraglio's view, a step up the hierarchy of genres and as offering a better social position, and indeed the status of printmaking was on the decline as the merely reproductive print, commissioned by publishers, had largely driven out the original print.
  The Renaissance medal was a novelty in the Polish court, but promoted by Bona, and in July 1539 Caraglio wrote to Aretino enclosing two medals, one of Pesenti and the other of Bona, the first evidence of his presence in Poland. Some copies of the former survive, but none of Bona's medal, as of some other recorded ones Caraglio made in Poland.  Only one copy survives of the medal he made of Sigismund I in 1538 from the gold sent as dowry for the wedding of Elizabeth of Austria (1526–1545), the first wife of the future Sigismund II, which was handed out to wedding guests.
  Caraglio was appointed royal goldsmith to Sigismund I in 1545, with a salary (probably more a retainer in modern terms) of 60 zloties, and continued serving under Sigismund II Augustus from 1548, when Sigismund I died. Having taken  citizenship in Krakow, he was knighted (as equitatis aureati), with a patent of nobility, in April 1552, after which he made a brief return trip to Italy. It was presumably on this visit that the portrait now in the Wawel Castle in Krakow by Paris Bordone was made to celebrate his knighthood. The royal white eagle has the monogram of Sigismund II on its chest, and the upper background shows the Roman amphitheatre at Verona; on the bench are the tools of a goldsmith rather than a printmaker.
  In 1565, he is recorded in a court action over a debt of 80 zloties owed by  another Italian emigre artist, the sculptor Giammaria Mosca, known as "Padovano", which Caraglio claimed from the executors of yet another Italian, a royal doctor, whose tomb Padovano had completed.  Caraglio married a Polish woman and acquired property, and died in Krakow, where he is buried in the Carmelite church. Vasari apparently did not know this, but probably knew that he was buying land near Parma in anticipation of a retirement that never arrived.  
  He was also known as Cahalius or Jacobus Veronensis or Parmensis, the latter presumably after his estate near Parma, and these were used to sign some plates.  Caraglio has never been the subject of a monograph.
caption: Medal of Sigismund II Augustus
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