Finiguerra, Maso (1426-1464)

Italian goldsmith, designer, and engraver. He is best known for his work in niello, a type of decorative metalwork in which incisions in the metal are filled with a black metallic compound. Although he did not actually invent the process of copper engraving (as Vasari claimed), he was instrumental in developing its use as an extension of niello work.

Born in Florence, Maso was praised by Vasari and Benvenuto Cellini as a printmaker and a master of niello work. As a young man he may have assisted Ghiberti on the east door of the baptistery in Florence and he was later associated with Antonio Pollaiuolo, several of whose paintings he may have reproduced in a series of copperplate engravings (1459-64). Few works by Maso survive. Among those that are often attributed to him are the Thewalt cross (c. 1464, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and a series of engravings called the Seven Planets.