MARCANTONIO [ MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI] (c. 1480 c. 153o), the chief Italian master of the art of engraving of the Renaissance, and the first who practised it in order to reproduce, not designs of his own invention, as earlier craftsmen had com monly done, but those of other artists almost exclusively. He was born probably about 148o at Bologna. As early as 1504 he is mentioned as an artist of repute in G. P. Achillini's Viridario. His earliest dated plate, illustrating the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, is ascribed to the year 1505. Marcantonio received his training in the workshop of the famous goldsmith and painter, Francesco Raibolini, called Francia. "Having more aptitude in design," says Vasari, "than his master, and managing the graver with facility and grace, he made waist-buckles and many other things in niello, such being then greatly in fashion, and made them most beautifully, as being in truth most excellent in that craft." The real fame, however, of Marcantonio was destined to be founded on his attainments in that particular development of the goldsmith's art which consists of engraving designs on metal plates for reproduction by the printing press. About eighty engravings can be referred to the first five or six years of his career (15o5-1511). Their subjects are very various, including many of pagan mythology, and some of obscure allegory, along with those of Christian devotion. The types of figures and drapery, and the general character of the compositions, bespeak for the most part the inspiration, and sometimes the direct author ship, of Francia. But the influence of German example is very perceptible also, particularly in the landscape backgrounds, and in the endeavour to express form by means of light and shadow with greater freedom than had been hitherto the practice of the Italian schools.
It may have been for the sake of commercial profit or for the sake of improving his style that he by-and-by produced a series of direct counterfeits on copper from Albrecht DUrer's woodcuts.
These facsimiles are sixty-nine in number, including seventeen of Diirer's "Life of the Virgin," thirty-seven of his "Little Passion," on wood, and a number of single pieces. The "Life of the Virgin"
was copied in 1506 and signed with Diirer's signature. DUrer who visited Italy in that year complained to the Venetian Senate of this action of Marcantonio, who then added his own signature to the copies which he subsequently made and completed in 1510 of Diirer's "Little Passion." The Bolognese engraver profited greatly by the study of the energetic line work and the method of modelling by cross-hatching of the Nuremberg master. He was soon to come under a totally different influence, and to turn the experience he had gained to account in interpreting the work of a master of a quite other stamp. Up till the year 1510 Marc antonio had lived entirely at Bologna, with the exception, it would appear, of a visit or visits to Venice. A few of his early engrav ings are from drawings of the school of Giorgione.
Very soon afterwards he was attracted, for good and all, into the circle which surrounded Raphael at Rome. Where or when he bad first made Raphael's acquaintance is uncertain. His passage to Rome by way of Florence has been supposed to be marked by an engraving, dated 15 i o, and known as "The Climb ers," Les Grimpeurs (Bartsch, 487), in which he has reproduced a portion of the design of Michelangelo's cartoon of the soldiers surprised bathing, and has added behind the figures a landscape imitated from the then young Dutch engraver Lucas of Leiden. Contemporary or somewhat earlier than this is a large engraving done by him from a design by Baldassare Peruzzi, a Sienese artist drawn about the same time into the Raphael circle. The piece in which he is recorded to have first tried his hand after Raphael himself is the Lucretia (Bartsch, 192). From that time until he disappears in the catastrophe of 1527, Marcantonio was almost exclusively engaged in reproducing by means of engraving the designs of Raphael or of his immediate pupils. Raphael, the story goes, was so delighted with the print of the Lucretia that he per sonally trained and helped Marcantonio afterwards.