Having obtained a 20-year exclusive over reproduction rights, Furlanetto began by issuing only one print – Presentation of the Doge in St. Mark’s Basilica on the Day of his Election – in 1766. Two years later would come the first, unnumbered, run of four different scenes. This is the so-called ‘first state’ of prints and plates, with the series of reproductions being completed some time before 1777. The ‘second state’ plates vary only in the addition of engraved Arabic numerals – and it was these which would in 1786 become the property of TeodoroViero, another of the indefatigable printers/entrepreneurs at work in Venice in the latter part of the eighteenth century. He would reprint the entire series in its ‘third state’ – that is, with the name and address of the previous printer replaced by his own: Apud Theodorum Viero in via mercatoria dicta dell’orologio. Some time between the second and third decade of the nineteenth century, there was a further change to the plates, which in the meantime had become the property of Giuseppe Battaggia, a Venetian printer with premises in the San Giacomo dell’Orio district. The numbers were erased and the Latin titles of each scene were replaced with those in Italian. This is the fourth state, the one in which we see the plates now. In 1842 two of the plates were already recorded as lost; and at the end of the century the remaining ten would become the property of the printer/publisher Ferdinando Ongania, an entrepreneur who played an active role in promoting knowledge of Venetian culture. The Museo Correr would acquire the plates from his descendants in 1955. As a fitting conclusion to this story – documented by the fascinating archive material at the beginning of this exhibition – these splendid copperplates of the Ducal Festivities are here being displayed together for the first time. Extraordinary objects that combine gleaming surface and vibrant line, they provide specialists and layman alike with an opportunity to appreciate something of the mystery of old technical skills and crafts.