BULINO

BURIN. — It is the tool used to engrave directly the copper or steel plate intended for printing matrices, without the aid of acids as used instead for etching (v.) and aquatint (v.).
It consists of a small rod of pure steel, with a rectangular, rhomboidal, or oval cutting edge, which is frequently sharpened on an oilstone and mounted on a short handle shaped like a mushroom. The lines, which may be more or less distant, wide, and deep, can be drawn in a single direction or crossed, and dots can be interspersed, executed either with the burin itself or with the drypoint needle, which is a burin with a conical point.
Especially suited to the meticulous reproduction of models (it was widely used for copies of works of art or for views: cf., e.g., the prints of Marcantonio Raimondi), it was nonetheless employed with entirely creative aims and results by artists such as, e.g., Antonio Pollaiuolo, Andrea Mantegna, and Albrecht Dürer.