GRECHE, Domenico dalle - b. 0 ?, d. ~1558 Venezia

Italian painter, wood-engraver and publisher. No paintings by him are known. In August 1546, on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he requested from the Venetian Senate a licence to publish a series of drawings executed during his journey. This privilege being granted, the work was published under the title Particularis et vera descriptio plateae sancti sepulcri … diligentia Dominici Dalle Greche Venet. Pict. descripta MDXLI … (the date is clearly incorrect). He later provided illustrations for the Pellegrinaggio di Ulrich von Wilkanaus (Prague, 1547). He also provided the botanical illustrations for the codices by the naturalist Pietro Antonio Michiel (MSS Marc. It. II. 26-30, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice)

Apart from some maps, some of which are lost, his most notable undertaking is the 1549 edition of Titian’s 12-block wood-engraving of the Submersion of Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea. An attempt has been made to prove the existence of an earlier printing edited by Bernardino Benalius following a licence of 1515, but the evidence is inconclusive. Only with difficulty could Domenico, an artist of modest skill, have engraved a work of such quality, so it is possible that Domenico could have acquired the blocks from Benalius’s workshop. Two other engravings by Domenico dalle Greche are known, again after works by Titian, the Lamentation and Christ Shown to the People.

Herbal

This botanical treatise is the autograph of Pietro Antonio Michiel (1510-1576) a Venetian patrician. This work describes over one thousand plants in five volumes, each having their own page numbering and are distinguished by the parchment bindings: red for volumes I an II, green for volume III, yellow for volume IV and violet blue for volume V. On the recto of each leaf is a watercolour drawing of a plant, executed by Domenico dalle Greche. On the verso are the name and a description of the plant.

The illustration shown here is taken from volume IV (folio 87).