[154] Mantoua preserved a certain attachment to Virgil in the darkest
ages; for besides numerous coins stamped with his image, his statue,
honoured by annual festivals, remained in the forum, till the brutal
fanaticism of Carlo Malatesta condemned it to the river. Vide _Ant.
Possevini Junioris Gonzaga_, lib. v. p. 486. Paul of Florence and Peter
Paul Vergerius wrote against Malatesta: the latter under the following
title, 'De Diruta Statua Virgilii P.P.V. eloquentissimi Oratoris
epistola ex tugurio Blondi sub Apolline.' No date.
[155] Some codices decorated with miniatures and the portrait of that
Countess: the most conspicuous of which is that by Donizone, a
Benedictine at Canossa, in the diocese of Reggio, but a German by
extraction, who lived at the court of Mathilda, and in two books of
barbarous verse composed her life and history. It is preserved in the
Vatican Library, No. 4922, and was first published by Sebastian
Tagnagolio, at Ingolstadt, 1612. 4to.
The original portrait of Mathilda, by an unknown hand, drawn from her
monument at Polirone, has been published by _J. Bat. Visi in Notizie
Storiche della città di Mantoua e dello stato_, t. ii. p. 122. She is
represented on a horse with a pomegranate in her hand.
[156] In the Convent "alle Grazie," tradition dates the remains of
several old pictures from the time of Mantegna. That miniature or rather
missal painting had attained a high degree of excellence at that period,
is proved by a large folio Bible, in the Estensian Library, decorated
with admirable copies of insects, plants, and animals. The contract made
between Duca Borso, 1455, and the two artists who painted it, Taddeo de
Crivelli and Zuanne de Russi da Mantova, has been preserved by
Bettshelli, Lett. Mant. Mantova, 1774. 4to.
[157] Vasari, whom rage of dispatch and eager credulity seldom suffered
to wait for authentic information, not content, in spite of his epitaph,
to tell us that he was born of low parents in some district of Mantoua,
confounds the date of his death with that of the inscription itself.
[158] See Nic. Vleughels, in his notes to Dolci.
[159] Garofalo.
[160] Cataloghi, p. 498.
[161] Indice del Pam. de' Pittori, p. 21.
[162] ----"περὶ χερσὶ δὲ δεσμὸν ἴηλα
Χρύσεον, ἄῤῥηκτον."--Ilias, xv. 19.
[163] Du Change. Copy of the Leda in the Colonna.
[164] In the palace Godolphin.
[165] In the obituary of the Franciscans at Correggio we read, "A di 5
Marzo 1534 mori Maestro Antonio Allegri Dipintore e fu sepolto a 6 detto
in S. Francesco sotto il Portico."
[166] Lattanzio Gambara.