CHERUBINO ALBERTI

The four engravings by Alberti after Rosso’s designs all bear the engraver’s monogram, Rosso’s name, and the designation that they were done in Rome.  Two are dated 1574 and two 1575.  Rosso’s drawings from which these prints were made, and of which one survives (D.38), all date from mid-1527 to 1529, in the last period of the artist’s activity in Italy.  How Alberti came upon these drawings is unknown.  But it is possible that he gathered them from the very region where or near where they were made and not far from where Alberti was born, Borgo Sansepolcro.  One of Rosso’s drawings used by Alberti was made by Rosso in Perugia, one quite possibly in Pieve di Santo Stefano near Sansepolcro, and at least one other in Arezzo.  Alberti was born in 1553 and his earliest dated engraving bears the date 1570; hence these four prints after Rosso’s designs are among Alberti’s earliest works.