FRANCINI, Alessandro. - Portrait de la Maison Royale de Fontaine Belleau.

A fine bird's-eye view of the royal palace of Fontainebleau, with on the left the royal lodgings and the galleries, organized around inner courtyards, on the right a pond surrounded by tree-lined roads, and in the upper part and the bottom right part, some formal gardens.
Engraved by Michael Lasne after Alessandro Francini, with a 32-point key.

Alessandro (d. 1648) and his older brother Tommaso (1571-1651), from Florence, were hydraulic engineers who work transformed French formal gardens with fountains and water-driven automata.

Engraved by Michel Lasne, who was born at Caen, probably before 1590. Engraved after Rubens from 1617 to 1620 at Antwerp (where registered in the Guild for a few months). Then in Paris. 'Dessinateur et graveur en taille douce' to Louis XIII by 1633, with lodgings in the Louvre. Le Comte talks of his extravagant life-style, with parties among the great, and died in financial trouble. From 1640, sometimes adopted the technique of Claude Mellan.