WORK AT MANTUA AND ROME: ENGRAVINGS, A.D. 1474-1490.
The painting of the Camera degli Sposi gave the Marquis an opportunity
for the bestowal of new favours on his chosen artist, “suus Andreas,” as
Mantegna proudly terms himself on the tablet where he has recorded the
completion of the work. Lodovico now granted him a piece of land near the
Church of St. Sebastian, in Mantua, where Andrea built a house with the
help of the architect Giovanni di Padova, and decorated it with frescoes
which were the admiration of his contemporaries, but which perished in
the sack of Mantua.
Unfortunately his love of splendid undertakings led him into
extravagance; he had already incurred heavy debts by purchasing a
property at Buscoldo, and the expenses of his new house involved him in
further difficulties. According to his usual habit he had recourse to
the Marquis, and addressed him on the 13th of May, 1478, in a querulous
letter, complaining that he is growing old, and has several sons and
one daughter of a marriageable age, and yet that while others think he
is basking in the sunshine of his Excellency’s favour he is in reality
poorer than when he first came to Mantua. He ended by asking him to pay
the eight hundred ducats required to satisfy his Buscoldo creditors, and
to give him six hundred more in order to defray the cost of his new house.
Lodovico was at that time in great difficulties himself, for he had
been defeated by his enemies, and even compelled to pawn his jewels.
None the less his reply was frank and generous. He fully recognised
his obligations, and assured him that all his last pledges should be
redeemed, but reminded him that of late fortune had been unfavourable
to his arms, and that it was impossible for him to give what he did not
possess. This letter, written in the same kindly spirit which we have
often before had occasion to notice, was the last which Andrea ever
received from his noble patron. Before another month had elapsed the good
Marquis was dead, and had been succeeded by his son Federico.
The young Gonzaga had known Mantegna from his boyhood, and proved as kind
and liberal a friend as his father to the wayward artist. He not only
paid his debts, but exempted the estates which he possessed both at Goïto
and at Mantua from the land-tax. All his dealings with Andrea are marked
by the same generous feeling. His letters express much concern on hearing
of an attack of illness which had interrupted the painter’s work; and
on another occasion, when one of Andrea’s sons was ill, he sent his own
doctor from Venice to attend him.
During the six years of this prince’s brief reign Mantegna was chiefly
employed in painting halls at the villas of Marmirolo and Gonzaga, which
have long since shared the common ruin of the summer palaces round Mantua.
His fame was now at its height. “The virtue of Andrea,” wrote the Marquis
Federico, “is known to the whole world;” and in 1483 Lorenzo de’ Medici
stopped at Mantua to visit our painter’s house and renowned collection
of antiquities. Other sovereigns sent him pressing invitations, and all
were desirous of having a work by Mantegna’s hand; but the great man was
capricious, and refused most of these solicitations. Federico himself
had to make his painter’s excuses in an elaborate epistle to the Duchess
of Milan, whose portrait Andrea flatly refused to undertake. There was
no help for it, and the disappointed lady had to rest satisfied with
Federico’s explanation, that since these excellent masters were so full
of fancies we must be content with what they choose to give us.
But when Federico’s early death in 1484 left the rule of his principality
to a mere child, Andrea, filled with anxiety for the future, and still
heavily burdened with debt, began to look around him for another patron.
His thoughts naturally turned to the illustrious patron of the fine arts
who had recently visited his studio, and he appealed to Lorenzo de’
Medici in a pathetic letter, bewailing the losses he had sustained in the
successive deaths of two generous masters, and begging to be employed,
if perchance he should have any talent likely to please so magnificent a
prince. What answer Lorenzo returned to this entreaty we do not learn,
but he probably gave him a commission before long, since we know that it
was for him Andrea painted the beautiful little Virgin of the Uffizi,
which, with the master’s habitual slowness, he did not finish until the
close of his visit to Rome. This little gem remains a precious memorial
of the intercourse between two of the most interesting personalities
of the Renaissance, and few of Andrea’s conceptions are sweeter than
the blue-draped Mother gazing with drooping eyelids on the Child whom
she rocks to sleep in her arms, while the peasants are seen at work in
the field beyond and a band of herdsmen drive their flocks up the steep
hill-side path.
After all, however, the state of affairs at Mantua was more hopeful than
Andrea had imagined in his first grief for the loss of Federico; and
before long the contemplated marriage of the boy Marquis Francesco with
Isabella of Este renewed his connection with the house of Ferrara, whose
members had been among his earliest patrons. He now painted a Madonna
for the Duchess Eleanor, which Francesco himself took to Ferrara, where
his mother-in-law was impatiently awaiting its arrival. Most critics
agree in identifying this picture with the noble Virgin, formerly in the
possession of Sir C. Eastlake and now in the Dresden Gallery, a work in
which the thoughtfulness of the child and tender maternal feeling of Mary
are peculiarly impressive.
Very soon afterwards, in the year 1485, Mantegna began the greatest
work of his whole life, the “Triumphs of Julius Cæsar,” now at Hampton
Court. They were originally destined for the palace of St. Sebastian,
at Mantua, which the young Marquis was then building; and a letter of
the 25th of August, 1485, describes how Prince Ercole of Ferrara saw
Mantegna employed on them in his studio. While engaged on this engrossing
work he was interrupted in the summer of 1488 by an invitation from Pope
Innocent VIII., who begged Francesco that the great Lombard artist might
be allowed to decorate his newly erected chapel in the Vatican. Political
reasons induced the Marquis to consent; he knighted Andrea and sent him
to Rome with the most flattering recommendations.
During two years Mantegna painted in the chapel of the Vatican, and it
is a subject of the deepest regret that a series of frescoes executed
in his best period should have been ruthlessly destroyed by Pius VI.
when he enlarged the Vatican Museum. On the entrance wall the Madonna
sat enthroned, above the altar was the “Baptism,” on the side walls the
“Birth of Christ” and the “Adoration of the Magi;” while Old Testament
subjects and the Virtues were represented in grisaille on the ceiling,
all painted, says Vasari, with the same miniature-like finish.
But Andrea did not find the Pope a liberal patron or Rome a pleasant
residence. He complains bitterly in his letters to Francesco of the
irregular payment which he receives, and the difference which he finds
between the habits of the Vatican and those of the Courts.
Whether he was not treated with the deference to which he was accustomed,
or whether failing health oppressed his spirits, his tone becomes more
and more melancholy. A longing for home had seized him, and he implores
the Marquis to send him a few lines of comfort, since he is now, as
he always has been, the child of the House of Gonzaga, and will serve
no other prince. Anxiety for his unfinished “Triumphs” is added to
the solicitude which he feels for his absent family, and he entreats
Francesco in the same breath to find his son Lodovico employment, and to
take care that his “Triumphs” are not injured by rain coming in at the
windows, since he considers them the best and most perfect of all his
works.
Francesco replied in the most friendly manner, promising to attend to his
requests, and begging Andrea to be careful of his health, and to return
as speedily as possible to complete the “Triumphs,” which he counts the
greatest glory of Mantua and his own house. But the frescoes of the
Belvedere Chapel were no small task, and Andrea had, as he complains,
no assistant to help him in his labours. He found means, however, to
express his dissatisfaction to the Pope one day by adding another Virtue
to the figures which he had designed. The Pope, who frequently visited
him when at work, asked him who the last Virtue might be. “That is
Discretion,” said the painter; upon which the Pope, not to be outdone,
returned promptly, “Put her in good company then, and add Patience.”
Another version of the story, given by Ridolf, is that he added the
figure of Ingratitude as an eighth to the seven deadly sins, saying that
this was the blackest of all crimes. In the following June he writes
more cheerfully, describing a singular visitor he has had in the person
of Zizim, brother of the Sultan Bajazet, then a captive in the Vatican,
and sending his portrait for Francesco’s amusement. Another six months
passed, and the Marquis wrote again, this time in a very urgent strain,
both to the Pope and Mantegna, saying that his marriage with Isabella
of Este was to take place in January, and that Andrea’s presence was
indispensable. The courier who brought the letter found the painter
ill in bed and unable to move; so the wedding festivities had to be
celebrated without him, and his return was delayed until the following
summer, when the Pope at length dismissed him with a complimentary letter
of thanks to the Marquis. Besides the small “Virgin” of the Uffizi,
only one other work of Andrea’s Roman time is known to exist, a “Man of
Sorrows, supported by Angels,” now in the Museum of Copenhagen, and, like
the Brera Pietà, remarkable for the skill and knowledge displayed both in
the drawing and distribution of light and shade.
* * * * *
It has often been said that during his visit to Rome, Mantegna first
learnt the new art of engraving, in the practice of which he spent so
large a portion of his time and powers. But if we consider, on the one
hand, the variety both in style and subject of his plates, and on the
other the great undertakings on which he was engaged during his last
years, we shall see that this is impossible.
It is true that no fixed date in his earlier career can be assigned with
certainty, but an attentive study of his engravings will, we think,
result in the conclusion that his first efforts in this new branch of
art belong to his Paduan days, and that he pursued it at intervals all
through his career, but with increased activity during the latter part
of his life. Two plates especially, the unfinished “Scourging” and
the “Descent of Christ into Limbo,” bear a strong resemblance to the
Eremitani frescoes, while others remind us in a similar manner of the
San Zeno altar-piece and the earlier Mantuan paintings. At first his
method was imperfect, but we trace a gradual improvement in the plates,
in proportion as he acquired greater technical knowledge in the new
art and became acquainted with Maso di Finiguerra, and it may be with
Schongauer’s engravings. All are marked by the same firmness of outline,
by the same closely-marked shading drawn in slanting lines from right
to left, and, above all, by the constant endeavour to give the print
something of the charm of chiaroscuro and colour. Since, however, a
whole school of engravers formed themselves on Mantegna’s style, and
Zoan Andrea, Mocetto, Campagnola and others, all adopted his method
and confined themselves almost exclusively to the reproduction of his
works—the task of distinguishing Mantegna’s original plates is by no
means easy. Of late years they have been subjected to a severe criticism,
and many formerly attributed to him are now rejected. But, whether we
accept twenty-four or twenty with M. Duplessis and Bartsch, or limit
the number to thirteen with M. Wallis, we shall equally acknowledge
how wonderfully every aspect of his genius is represented in these
engravings, and how inexhaustible was that wealth of thought and imagery
which, unable to find its full expression in painting, sought another
channel in the sister art.
[Illustration: THE ENTOMBMENT.
_From the engraving by Mantegna._]
Small as is the cycle of genuine prints, they embrace a wide range of
subject; pagan myths, Roman and Christian themes, are all treated in
turn with the same seriousness of purpose and marvellous variety of
invention. Sometimes he reproduces his own pictures—the “Virgin of the
Grotto” from the Uffizi triptych, in later years we have the “Triumphs”
and the “Dancing Muses of the Parnassus.” The Bacchanalia, and still more
the “Battle of the Sea-gods,” remain to show us how deeply the spirit
of classic bas-relief had sunk into his soul. Certain subjects there
are in which he takes especial delight, which he treats with as great
freshness and originality as if he had never before approached them.
Such are the “Hercules and Antæus,” already represented in grisaille on
the ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi, and the “St. Sebastian,” which
hardly yields in beauty to the sublime painting of the Belvedere. At
other times he reveals some altogether new conception, as in the noble
“Descent from the Cross,” which supplied the motives whence Albrecht
Dürer, Luca Signorelli, Daniele da Volterra, and Rubens in turn took
their inspirations. In dramatic power and intensity of feeling this plate
is only equalled by the well-known “Entombment,” where all the horrors
of death, all the depths of the wildest despair, seem gathered up and
concentrated in that one figure of St. John wringing his hands aloft and
uttering the great and bitter cry which cannot be restrained. The same
strong feeling shows itself under another form in the seated Madonna,
whose whole figure is swayed with the foreboding of coming anguish that
mingles with her love, as she bends forward to press the Child closer to
her face. But although these figures, animated with rage and despair,
with a great hatred or a still greater love, are the subjects on which
Andrea seemed to dwell with preference in his engravings, he returns
at times to the serene repose of ancient statuary, and designs for us
a group of perfect majesty in the three grand figures of “St. Andrew,
St. Longinus, and the Risen Christ,” who stands between them, calm and
strong, with the awe of that death which he had conquered still upon his
brow.
Again, in vivid contrast with reeling satyrs and angry Tritons battling
on the rough sea-waves, we have the quiet portrait heads of Lodovico
Gonzaga and his wife, Barbara,[2] whose homely faces and earnest eyes
look out of the same quaint costumes as on their palace walls at Mantua,
and on whose brocaded robes infinite pains have been bestowed.
This is not the place to enter into further details, or a whole
volume might with profit be devoted to the consideration of Mantegna’s
engravings, but enough has been said to show how important a part of his
works they form, and how extraordinary was the genius of the man who
could, in his leisure moments during the brief intervals which elapsed
between his greater tasks, give to the world so rich a treasure of
profound and varied thought.
[Illustration: JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES.
_From the drawing by Mantegna in the Uffizi._]
[Illustration]