Post #2 Research Project: Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Renaissance Print

Marcantonio Raimondi with Albrecht Dürer

      In the Renaissance, many images were transferred or repeated into different mediums: drawings would become paintings and paintings would become tapestries, etc... The idea was that being able to have more than one image of a piece of artwork was highly desirable, and printmaking was the answer to that. Printmaking has an inherent ability to produce thousands of editions. Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving and woodcut publishing business made him a successful artist. Giorgio Vasari's biography of Marcantonio labels him as the central figure in Renaissance printmaking (Pon, 13). Marcantonio's prints were widely collected by the late 1500's and highly valued (Pon, 15).

Marcantonio Raimondi worked in conjunction, or collaboration, with living artists like Baccio Bandinelli when creating prints.

 

Marcantonio and Baccio Bandinelli “ Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” engraving (This piece was executed from Bandinell's drawing... a collaboration)

 Possession and collaboration was an issue in the printmaking world, “the concept of practical collaboration allows us to explore the range of relationships, from cases in which the printmaker knew and worked next to the designer, to ones in which there was no personal interaction at all [in creating the image]” (Pon, 12). Not much information of printmaker Marcantonio Raimondi survives today, not even the exact years of his birth and death (Pon, 10). No such legal documentation of collaboration between Marcantonio and Raphael or Dürer and Marcantonio have survived either (Pon, 12). What has survived is the animosity Albrecht Dürer must have felt toward Marcantonio Raimondi.

      In the early 1500's Albrecht Dürer's prints were widely distributed from his native roots in Germany, especially to Venice, Italy. In his youth Marcantonio traveled to Venice and discovered the beautiful woodcuts of Dürer. He spent almost all of the money he brought with him in order to purchase the twenty print series of Dürer's called “Life of the Virgin”. Albrecht Dürer had a large problem with people copying and redistributing his artwork (especially the Italians) without his consent. One of these offenders was Marcantonio Raimondi when he made engravings “of the Nuremberg artist's Life of the Virgin woodcuts” (Pon, 39). Dürer's Life of the Virgin series of twenty woodcuts was, in a way, copyrighted. The Emperor of Rome, Maximilian, had privileged Dürer “that no one shall dare to print these works in spurious forms, nor sell such prints with the boundaries of the Empire...” (Pon, 39).

Albrecht Dürer, “Glorification of the Virgin” from “Life of the Virgin” series Woodcut

Marcantonio after Albrecht Dürer “Glorification of the Virgin” from “Life of the Virgin” series Engraving

      Marcantonio's copies, or plagiarized versions, of the woodcuts were so skilled that many people thought the engravings were made by Albrecht Dürer. This is partly because Marcantonio did not remove Dürer's AD monogram, or signature, from his own copies. When this situation was discovered by Dürer he “was moved to such a fury that he left Flanders and went to Venice, where he complained about Marcantonio to the Senate. However, he got nothing but the sentence that Marcantonio could no longer add the name or monogram of Albrecht Dürer to his works” (Pon, 41).

Dürer's AD monogram

      Sometimes Marcantonio's engravings still have the AD signature as well as Marcantonio's own monogram. Marcantonio's monogram, or signature is sometimes MA or MAF which stands for Marc'Antonio de' Franci in honor of his teacher Francesco Francia (Pon, 15). Although in other Marcantonio engravings of Dürer's work the AD is completely removed.

        It was surprising to learn such lenient penalties for apparent plagiarism compared to current punishments for stealing and reproducing artwork without consent in the 21^st century. This treatment in the 1500's of artwork is because “these copies were produced in an ambiance that did not always understand pictures as an artist's property ”(Pon, 41). It is much later in the history of art that these issues of copying and plagiarizing are more seriously addressed.

        Next time I will discuss the more cordial relationship of High Renaissance artist Raphael with Marcantonio Raimondi.

Bibliography:

Pon, Lisa. Raphael, Durer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Renaissance Print. China: 

     Yale University Press, 2004. Print

P.S. I just wanted to share with you all a quote from the book I am using. As a MFA candidate in Printmaking this bitching from painter Titian made be laugh:

“Titian complained that certain men of little skill in art, in order to avoid hard work and out of greed for money, have adopted this profession [of printmaking], defrauding of honor the original author of said prints by worsening them, stealing the labor of others, in addition to swindling the public with forgeries of little value” (Pon, 48).