Dürer was much afflicted by the boldness of many imitators, who plagiarized his engravings without stint, and flooded the market with pictures from his designs. His rights were protected but poorly by the edicts of the Emperor and the city of Nuremberg; and a swarm of parasitical copyists reproduced every fresh design as soon as it was published. Marc Antonio Raimondi, the great Italian engraver who worked so many years with Raphael, was the most dangerous of these plagiarists, and reproduced "The Little Passion" and "The Life of the Virgin" in a most exquisite manner, close after their publication. Vasari says, "It happened that at this time certain Flemings came to Venice with a great many prints, engraved both in wood and copper by Albert Dürer, which being seen by Marc Antonio in the Square of St. Mark, he was so much astonished by their style of execution, and the skill displayed by Albert, that he laid out on those prints almost all the money he had brought with him from Bologna, and amongst other things purchased 'The Passion of Jesus Christ,' engraved on thirty-six wooden blocks.... Marc Antonio therefore, having considered how much honor as well as advantage might be acquired by one who should devote himself to that art in Italy, resolved to attend to it with the greatest diligence, and immediately began to copy these engravings of Albert, studying their mode of hatching, and every thing else in the prints he had purchased, which from their novelty as well as beauty, were in such repute that every one desired to possess them." It appears that Marc Antonio was afterwards enjoined from using Dürer's monogram on his copies of the Nuremberger's engravings, either by imperial diplomatic representations to the Italian courts, or else as the result of a visit which some claim that Dürer made to Italy for that purpose. Many of the copies of Marc Antonio were rather idealized adaptations than exact reproductions of the German's designs, but were furnished with the forged monogram A. D., and sold for Dürer's works. Sixty-nine of our artist's engravings were copied by the skilful Italian, profoundly influencing Southern art by the manual dexterity of the North. This wholesale piracy was carried on between 1505 and 1511, and before Marc Antonio passed under Raphael's overmastering influence. In later years the Rath of Nuremberg warned the booksellers of the city against selling false copies of Dürer's engravings, and sent letters to the authorities of Augsburg, Leipsic, Frankfort, Strasbourg, and Antwerp, asking them to put a stop to such sales within their jurisdictions. His works have been copied by more than three hundred artists, the best of whom were Solis, Rota, the Hopfers, Wierx, Vischer, Schön, and Kraus.