UGO DA CARPI. — Painter and woodcut artist, born in Carpi (Modena) c. 1480 and died in Parma in 1532. As a painter he was already judged mediocre by Vasari and Michelangelo (he boasted of painting with his fingers: a painting in the Petriano Museum in Rome with SS. Peter, Paul and Veronica indeed bears the inscription “per Ugo Carpi intiatore, fata senza penelo”). Yet Vasari, on the other hand, proclaims him “inventor of three-block woodcuts,” which enabled chiaroscuro reproduction of the works of great artists.
Setting aside the question of priority, contested and claimed by the Germans, Ugo da C. achieved in woodcut practice effects never before attained. For his compositions the artist drew especially on the work of Raphael and that of Parmigianino.