With its large size and intricate design, Adam and Eve is one of his D�rer�s masterpieces of engraving. Produced in 1504, about a decade after his first trip to northern Italy from 1494�1495, it shows D�rer�s exposure to Italian art. Adam�s posture and proportions recall the so-called Apollo Belvedere, a sculpture unearthed in Rome in 1489. Heralded as the supreme model of male beauty, within a decade of its discovery images of the sculpture were widely disseminated among artistic communities in Renaissance Italy. Although D�rer never visited Rome and could not have actually seen the sculpture, he must have been aware of it through a drawing seen during his first Italian sojourn. His appreciation for the principles of Renaissance art is also apparent in the musculature of Adam�s torso which is rendered using dots and flecks created by the burin, an Italian engraving style. In contrast, the dense and dark background is rendered in a markedly northern Gothic style.