Marcantonio produced over 300 prints during his lifetime. His work was a decisive contribution to the spread of Renaissance artists, and in particular of the work of Raphael in Europe. He was an important personality in the Renaissance art world.38 He is mentioned already in the first edition of the Lives of Artists from 1550, where Vasari writes that Raphael was so much inspired by the work of Albrecht Dürer that he instructed Marcantonio to study printmaking and produce several renowned prints, such as the Massacre of the Innocents, the Last Supper. The 1568 version includedthe Life of Marcantoniothatwhile it has been criticized for being inaccurate, is still characteristic of the status Marcantonio Raimondi enjoyed. Vasari respected Marcantonio, who after all was a praised Italian artist, that had worked close to Raphael throughout his life. It must have been a difficult task for Vasari to keep the balance between Marcantonio’s status and his admiration for the work of Dürer. The woodcuts in the centre of the legal disputes discussed in this thesis, are prints included in the Life of the Virgin (or Life of Mary) series and were created during the years 1501–1504. The series consists of twenty sheets each one of them dedicated to a scene from the life of Virgin Mary. According to Panofsky, Dürer was particularly involved in their production process. Most of them were created before his last trip to Italy in 1505. The sheets were sold by Dürer and his distribution channels to individual buyers.39 Dürer’s work had been copied several times in the past both in Germany and in Italy. Already in 1494 printmakers such as Hieronymus Graff, Nicoletto da Modena, Israel von Meckenem would print Dürer’s art without his authorisation. In a letter written by Dürer in 1506, he provided that Italian artists ”imitate my work in churches and wherever they can get hold of it”. The more famous he became the more extensive the copying he had to endure. Well aware of the extensive copying that was taking place, in his 1511 edition of the Life of the Vir92 disruptive technology and materiality as vessels of authorship The counterfeited prints 38 Pon, Lisa, Raphael, Dürer and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print, 2004 pp. 33–45. 39 Panofsky, Erwin, The Life and art of Albrecht Dürer, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey, 1955.
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