guarantee quality in a way that was not necessarily possible for other artists of his time. These early branding strategies are indicative of the impact of brands on the Renaissance art market. The role these played is confirmed by the legal framework that was developed at the time and that provided some early form of trademark protection and marketing regulation. Consumers were to be protected by the free-riders that used other artists’ monograms in a fraudulent way. Nuremberg’s strict regulation on labelling as well as Roman law on falsus, safeguarded the interest of consumer protection. At the same time, there is an interest in protecting commercial origin and the value the brand has acquired with time. This interest protected both by means of the above-mentioned legal framework, as well as of the system of privileges. The Imperial privilege would constitute a means of protection of the commercial value, the investments and the goodwill of the commercial entity that produced the original prints. It is, however, characteristic that the ruling chooses to apply the marketing and labelling regulation as if this is the most important aspect, more important the protection provided by privileges. The actual effect of the rulings was that Marcantonio could in fact continue to copy the images produced by Dürer, but he could not brand them with Dürer’s monogram.58 The special characteristics of prints and the new world of potential customers that opened up, had two main effects of legal nature, namely the fact that Dürer had to create a sophisticated web of distributors in Germany and abroad, and thus of complicated commercial agreements, but also the fact that he was exposed to copying. It would be a waste if his prints were only sold through the market stand his mother and wife operated in the Nuremberg fair. Reaching out to the rest of Germany and to the rest of Europe presupposed depending on agents and business partners. In order to preserve control of his business relations he had to employ contracts regulating the terms of the 102 disruptive technology and materiality as vessels of authorship 56 Barthes, Roland, ‘La mort de l’auteur’ dans Le bruissement de la langue, 1978. 57 Pon, Lisa, Raphael, Dürer and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print, 2004, pp. 40–47. 58 Pierre, Gerin-Jean, Prices of works of art and hierarchy of artistic value on the Italian market (1400–1700). Gérin-Jean, Pierre. (2003) – In: The art market in Italy, 15th–17th centuries, p. 181–194.
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