Mantegna

by N. D'Anvers

It is easy to imagine how much Francesco had to confide to his court painter when he paid his next visit to the studio; how he dwelt on the charms of his beloved Isabella, and lamented over the years that must elapse before she could become his wife. He found Mantegna eagerly engaged on the preliminary drawings for the “Triumph of Cæsar,” and to the instructions already given by Lodovico Gonzaga he added a wish that all the distinguished guests who were soon to meet at his court should be introduced in the processions, as well as the chief members of his own family. Mantegna, he may have said, would have plenty of opportunities for making studies of them; and now he must put everything else aside for a time to design the decorations in honour of the visit of the bride-elect and her mother, which were to be a kind of foretaste of those in celebration of the wedding. In all the preparations for that great event he relied upon the co-operation of Mantegna, who must promise not to accept any invitation or commission that could interfere with his work on them, and, premature as this must have appeared to the artist, he readily gave the required assurance.

All passed over as happily as Francesco himself could have wished during the brief stay at Mantua of Eleonora and Isabella, who won all hearts by their sympathetic appreciation of everything that was done to please them. After they left, the work on the “Triumph of Cæsar” proceeded apace, interrupted only now and then for the execution of minor commissions, such as the designing of jewellery, drinking-cups, &c.; but in 1488 came a very unwelcome summons for Mantegna to go to Rome, Pope Innocent VIII., who had heard of the beauty of the frescoes at Padua and Mantua, wishing to have a chapel in the Vatican decorated by their artist. Such an invitation had all the force of a command, and the Marquis was reluctantly compelled to let his beloved painter go; but before he left, he conferred on him the honour of knighthood, that he might take a better position in the papal court, and once more reminded him of the necessity that he should be back at Mantua in January 1490 at the very latest. Bearing with him a letter to the Pope, dated June 10, 1488, in which Francesco spoke of him in the very highest terms, Mantegna started for the Holy City, where he was welcomed with the greatest eagerness, not only by his new employer but by the ecclesiastical and secular notabilities, who vied with each other in doing him honour. Certain letters to the Marquis Francesco, however, betray discontent with the payment he received from the Pope, and also with the facilities for his work afforded him in the Vatican, a dissatisfaction that would, indeed, have been intensified could he have foreseen that the frescoes for which he sacrificed so much were to be ruthlessly destroyed in 1780, with the chapel containing them, to make room for the Museo Pio Clementina.

It is only from allusions to them by Vasari and descriptions by the later critics, Agostino Taja and Giovanni Pietro Chattard, who lived in the second half of the eighteenth century, and saw the frescoes shortly before their destruction, that any idea can be obtained of what they were; but a supposed copy of a portrait of Innocent VIII. included in them, is in the collection of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. That they were executed by Mantegna without any assistance is proved by a letter from him to the Marquis Francesco, dated June 15, 1489, in which he says, “The work is heavy for a man alone, intent on obtaining honours, especially in Rome, where opinion is expressed by so many able men, and as in the races run by Barbary horses the first gets the prize, so I too must gain in the end, if it please God.”

It is unnecessary to dwell long on works of art that have completely disappeared. Suffice it to say that the frescoes were not finished in December 1489, but that Mantegna was hoping to get leave of absence from the Pope for February 1490, when he was suddenly struck down by fever, just before he would have started for Mantua had all been well. The long-talked-of wedding took place, therefore, during his absence, and he had, after all, absolutely nothing to do with the festivities in honour of the marriage, that were evidently of a magnificent description. It must have been, indeed, a keen mortification to him to have missed such a golden opportunity of proving his devotion to his Mantuan patron, and it is easy to realise with what mixed feelings he heard of the enthusiastic reception of the bride in her husband’s native city. Accompanied by Isabella’s parents, her uncle Cardinal d’Este, and her three young brothers, and escorted by a brilliant suite, the newly wedded pair entered the city on February 12th, the one drawback to their happiness, contemporary chroniclers report, having been the absence of the court painter, whose praises had been so often sung by the bridegroom.

PLATE VI.—THE MADONNA AND CHILD OF THE GROTTO

(In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence)

This severe and dignified group, now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, is supposed by some critics to have been painted in Mantua about the same time as the frescoes of the Camera degli Sposi, whilst others assign it to a much later date, declaring it to have been produced between 1488-1490 during the artist’s residence in Rome.

Fortunately, the artist soon recovered from his illness, but it was not until September that he completed his work in Rome, and received permission from the Pope to return to Mantua. Innocent VIII. expressed himself in his letter of dismissal fully satisfied with the way in which his wishes had been carried out; but whether the artist was equally pleased with the reward for his services is questionable. He was evidently very glad to leave Rome, where, strange to say, in spite of his love for antiquity and the opportunities he must have enjoyed for his favourite study, he seems to have felt out of his element. His correspondence with the Marquis betrays considerable home-sickness, and contains absolutely no allusions to the art treasures of the Vatican. He pleads with his patron for an appointment for his son Lodovico, declares he is longing to be at work again on the “Triumph of Cæsar,” and retails various items of court gossip, telling quaint stories, for instance, about the ill-fated Prince Djem, brother of the reigning Sultan of Turkey, who was then a prisoner in the Vatican, but not a word does he say to throw light on the political situation, which was already causing anxiety to the heads of the great Italian states. Back again in Mantua, Mantegna quickly threw off the depression revealed in his letters, resuming his old place as if he had never been away, his studio becoming once more the centre of artistic activity in the ancient town.

The court painter was as eagerly welcomed by the young Marchesa as by her husband, and for the rest of his life his fortunes were very closely bound up with those of the d’Este family, which is equivalent to saying that he was henceforth to be in close touch with the history of his native country, that was even then on the eve of the Revolution that was completely to change her position in the polity of nations. The Marquis of Mantua’s bride was the only sister of Beatrice d’Este, who was married on December 29, 1490, to the brilliantly gifted but fickle, cruel, and crafty Lodovico Sforza, surnamed II Moro, who obtained the dukedom of Milan through treachery, and was mainly instrumental in bringing about the invasion of Italy by the French, a crime for which he was to pay dearly, first with his liberty and in the end with his life, for he died a prisoner in the Castle of Loches in 1508.