Bulino

BULINO. - It is the tool with which the copper or steel plate intended as a matrix for prints is directly engraved, without the aid of the acids used instead for etching (v.) and for aquatint (v.).

It consists of a small rod of very pure steel, with a rectangular, rhomboidal or oval cutting edge, which is frequently sharpened on an oilstone and mounted on a short mushroom-shaped handle. The lines, more or less far apart and more or less wide and deep, can be drawn in a single direction or crossed, and dots can be interspersed among them, made with the burin itself or with the drypoint, which is a burin with a conical point.

Especially suited to the minute reproduction of models (it was much used for copies of works of art or for views: cf., for example, the prints of Marcantonio Raimondi), it was nevertheless used with wholly creative intentions and results by artists such as, for example, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer.