Marc Antonio’s plates passed through the hands of Tommaso Barlacchi, Antonio Salamanca, Antonio Lafreri, Nicholas Van Aelst, and Rossi, or De Rubeis, of Rome. Of these publishers, the impressions which bear Salamanca’s name, are most esteemed: but the best are those which have no publisher’s name at all. The Baron Heineken, in his elaborate ‘Dictionnaire des Artistes dont nous avons des Estampes,’ (from which this memoir is little more than a free translation,) has given a minute catalogue of the works attributable to Marc Antonio. He divides them into four classes:—prints really engraved by the master, and bearing his marks, in number, 120; prints engraved by him, but without mark, 126; prints doubtful, 66; and prints which belong to his era, and to his school, but are by unknown hands. In this reckoning, series like the Passion of Christ, which consist of many plates, are counted only as single works. Strutt, in his Dictionary of Engravers, and Bryan, in his Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, give lists of the more remarkable of Antonio’s productions; Bryan is the fuller, but neither of them pretend to compete in extent and detail with the catalogue of Heineken; whom Strutt has closely followed in his biographical notice of this artist. He has given fac-similes of this engraver’s marks, seven in number, in plate 9, vol. ii. We quote the following passages in illustration of Marc Antonio’s merits and peculiar characteristics, from the Essay on the History of Engraving, which is prefixed to Strutt’s work. “His engravings are often defective in point of harmony, and the skilful management of the light and shadow, which gives them an unfinished and sometimes disgustful appearance to the common eye. On the other hand, a graceful flow of outline, joined with purity and correctness of drawing in its greatest latitude, are found in the best works of this master; but these beauties rarely attract the general notice without the assistance of neatness, or what is more properly called high finishing, especially in the present day (1786). The eye, long accustomed to neatness and delicacy of finishing, especially where the judgment is not capable of distinguishing the greater essentials of the art, will necessarily consider that neatness to be the criterion of excellency. Hence it is that the works of the old masters are fallen into such general disrepute: their beauties are overlooked, and their faults are viewed through a magnifying medium. And it is perhaps because Marc Antonio stands the first among the old masters, that he has received a greater share of censure than the rest. “The excellency of this master consists in the correctness of his drawing, the character of his heads, and the pure idea his works convey of the simplicity and elegance of the originals they are taken from: and they may be considered as admirable drawings, not highly finished indeed, but sufficiently so to preserve the design and spirit of the masters from whom he worked.