Fig. 48.—MARC ANTONIO.
Portrait of Raphael.
The school founded by Marc Antonio soon became the most numerous and active of all. We have seen that the Germans themselves crowded to Rome, and surrounded the master who had caused them to forget Albert Dürer. Engravers came to learn or to perfect their knowledge in the same school from every part of Italy. There were Marco da Ravenna, Agostino Veniziano, Giovanni Caraglio da Verona, Il Vecchio da Parma, and Bonasone da Bologna. Some years later came the family of the Mantovani, a member of which, Diana Scultori, more often called Diana Ghisi, presented perhaps the first example, so common afterwards, of a female engraver. Many others, whose names and works have remained more or less celebrated, descend from Marc Antonio, whether they received his teaching directly or through his pupils.
He, whilst so much talent was being developed under his influence, continued the kind of work in which he had excelled from the beginning of his stay in Rome, confining himself to the engraving of Raphael's compositions: that is, as we have already said, of his drawings. It is this which explains the difference, at first sight incomprehensible, between certain prints by Marc Antonio and the same subjects as painted by Raphael. The painter often submitted to the engraver pen or pencil sketches of subjects which he afterwards altered with his brush when transferring them to walls or panels: the "St. Cecilia," the "Parnassus," the "Poetry," for instance, which are so unlike in the copy and in what wrongly appears to have been the original. Raphael often drew specially for engraving: as in the "Massacre of the Innocents," the "Judgment of Paris" the "Plague of Phrygia," &c.; but in either case Marc Antonio had but to find the means of faithfully rendering given forms with the graver, without troubling himself about those difficulties which the luminous or delicate qualities of colour would certainly have introduced.
Raphael's death, however, deprived the engraver of an influence which, to the great advantage of his talent, he had obeyed submissively for ten years. Marc Antonio would not continue to work from the drawings of the master who could no longer superintend him; but he still continued to honour him in the person of his favourite pupil, Giulio Romano, to whom he attached himself, and whose works he reproduced almost exclusively.
Fig. 49.—MARC ANTONIO.
The Three Doctors.
The connection of the two artists resulted in the publication of some fine engravings, amongst others the "Hercules and Antæus," but it unfortunately terminated in a disgraceful business. Giulio Romano, following the dissolute manners of the day, rather than the example and traditions of the noble leader of the school, stooped to design a series of boldly licentious subjects. Marc Antonio consented to engrave them, and Pietro Aretino helped still further to degrade the undertaking by composing an explanatory sonnet to be printed opposite to each plate. The result was a book whose title is still infamous. In publishing it the two artists took care not to sign their names. They were, however, discovered by the boldness of the style and the firmness of the line; for, surprising as it may seem, neither took the trouble to alter his usual manner: they merely profaned it. Here, assuredly, their wonted dignity of form and energy of workmanship appear somewhat incongruous qualities.[25] The culprits were soon discovered; and Clement VII. issued a warrant to pursue them, ordering, at the same time, that every copy of the work should be destroyed. Aretino fled to Venice, Giulio Romano to Mantua, and the only sufferer was the engraver. He was imprisoned for several months, and only set at liberty, thanks to frequent requests made by Giulio de' Medici and the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli, from whose original, to prove his gratitude, he executed the beautiful "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," one of the masterpieces of Italian engraving.