Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. Artist: Cornelis Cort (Netherlandish, Hoorn ca. 1533-1578 Rome); After Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (Italian, Pieve di Cadore ca. 1485/90-1576 Venice). Dimensions: Sheet: 19 13/16 x 13 3/4 in. (50.3 x 34.9 cm). Date: 1571.One of the most famed printmakers of his day, Cornelis Cort was admired for his ability to translate tonal qualities into a black and white engraving. Cort accomplished this in part through an important technical innovation: It is the nature of an engraved line, cut as it is with a tool (the burin) whose cutting edge comes to a sharp triangular point, to begin as a point, swell almost imperceptibly at the center, and narrow to a point again at the end. Cort exploited this quality of the burin line; by varying his pressure on the tool as he gouged the plate, he developed a flexible line that becomes thicker and thinner along its length, creating various degrees of darkness without adding additional lines.In the first half of the sixteenth centur