A technical dictionary of printmaking, André Béguin.
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fine manner and broad manner
In 1872 Kolloff introduced the distinction between mariera fine and maniera larga with regard to Italian engraving of the Quattrocento.
"the first of these manners is supposedly characterized by very close work where the lines are hard to distinguish while in the second manner the lines are supposedly well separated, as in a pencil drawing. Furthermore, the fine manner was thought to express the delicate sentiments of Botticelli-like engravers while the broad manner was more virile and closer to the work of Pollaiolo... in practice the half-way examples and the hybrids of these manners are at least as many as the pure examples. The original and its copy, the foreground and the back-ground of a particular print are often not in the same manner. Those who used this distinction know better than anyone else that it is no more than a make-shift solution, quite arbitrary, without much meaning, and, on the whole, quite cumbersome." (]ean Laran, L'Estampe,l, p. 40, PUF, PARIS, 1959).
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