Punchcutter.

Manutius, De Aetna, 1496.

Francesco Griffo, son of the goldsmith and engraver Cesare, was probably born in Bologna or in the countryside surrounding the city in the mid-fifteenth century. During the nineteenth century it was established that the printer Francesco da Bologna and the goldsmith, engraver, coiner and painter Francesco Raibolini, called ‘Francia’, who had been considered the same person, were as a matter of fact two different persons.

Today few documents are left to recreate the life and the activity of one the protagonists of book history.  It is highly likely that Griffo undertook the career of engraver of printing types (‘punchcutter’) and typefounder for the printers of Bologna, famous for the typographical elegance of their books. 

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