Gezicht op de resten van de Thermen van Diocletianus te Rome

The Baths of Diocletian (Thermae Diocletiani) in Rome were built from 298 to in 306. The Baths were commissioned by Maximian in honor of co-Emperor Diocletian in 298, the same year he returned from Africa. The Baths occupy the high-ground on the northeast summit of the Vimina hills in Rome. The water supply was provided by the Aqua Marcia and Aqua Antoniniana aqueducts. The Baths remained in use until the siege of Rome in 537 when the Ostrogothic king Vitiges cut off the aqueducts.

Printmaking in woodcut and engraving came to Northern Italy within a few decades of their invention north of the Alps. Engraving probably came first to Florence in the 1440s, the goldsmith Maso Finiguerra (1426–64) used the technique. Italian engraving caught the very early Renaissance, 1460–1490. Print copying was a widely accepted practice, as well as copying of paintings viewed as images in their own right.