VENICE: Before the end of the fifteenth century, Venice came to be at the forefront of the European book printing trade. More incunabule editions were printed in Venice than in any other city. Engraved illustrations in books, however, were rare before 1514. The earliest signed engraved illustrations printed in Venice were printed in Ambrogio Leone’s De Nola of the same year, of four maps and plans of the town of Nola, in the Kingdom of Naples. The engravings were completed with the help of Girolamo Mocetto. Alongside Mocetto, the main engravers working in Northern Italy at this time were Lucantonio deli Uberti, Giulio Campagnola, Domenico Campagnola, Benedetto Montagna, Jacopo de’ Barbari, Zoan Andrea, Giovanni Antonio da Brescia, Giovanni Maria da Brescia, Nicoletto da Modena, Marcantonio Raimondi, and Giovanni Pietro da Birago. 

ROME: While Venice dominated the printed book trade in the Quattrocento, both Paris and Rome would surpass the number of printed editions in the Cinquecento. Single sheet printed images, however, were much more dominant in the papal capital than in Venice when it came to illustrated images until the end of the sixteenth century.