Artist and engraver. Originally from Genoa, Italy, Chiossone traveled to Japan in 1875 and was one of several foreigners imported to share his knowledge of engraving and manufacturing techniques. The manufacturing system for stamps at the currency office was changed completely by the hiring of Chiossone and his colleagues. In the hand-engraved plate system that had been used since the ryu-mon stamps, every stamp on a sheet was carved individually in a large concave block, requiring a great deal of labor, and necessarily resulting in differences in each stamp. The new system brought by Chiossone required only one enlarged hand-engraved master. This was loaded onto a reducing machine to produce a reduced edition, which was then relief-printed for mass production using the then-new Klatey technique and Dentai method, with the reduced edition serving as the master. One sheet could thus be made very easily from the original. There is a museum in his honor in Genoa, Italy. (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett) Cause of death: stroke