C. Naya Photo.]
MANTEGNA. FROM THE BRONZE MONUMENT IN THE CHURCH OF S. ANDREA AT MANTUA.
He seems, too, to have been an indefatigable worker, and drew with great diligence from the statues, busts, bas-reliefs, and architectural ornaments he found in the school of Squarcione. "At the age of seventeen Andrea painted his first great picture for the church of Santa Sofia in Padua (now lost), and at the age of nineteen assisted in painting the chapel of St. Christopher in the Eremitani—representing on the vault the four evangelists." He is said to have given to these sacred personages the air and attitude of Greek or Roman philosophers, the type in fact confirmed by Raphael and afterwards generally adopted by Renascence artists.
A curious change or blending of other elements and a different feeling in Mantegna's work, softening the somewhat cold and rigid classicism, seems to have been brought about by his association with the Venetian painter Jacopo Bellini, the father of the two greater Bellinis (Giovanni and Gentile), whose daughter Nicolosia he married about this time (1450). This marriage with the daughter of Squarcione's rival, as Bellini was considered, and Mantegna's friendship with him, seems to have offended Squarcione and caused an estrangement, and even the active enmity of his first master, and eventually led to his quitting Padua. He painted some frescoes at Verona, and was invited to Mantua by Ludovico Gonzaga, and finally he entered the service of that prince. He was invited to Rome by Pope Innocent VIII. to paint a chapel in the Belvedere of the Vatican, which was actually destroyed in the last century by Pius VI. to make room for his new museum. This was after the ruthless way of the popes, prodigal of painted walls, as when the beautiful early Renascence frescoes of Melozzo da Forli were removed to make room for Raphael's and Giulio Romano's frescoes in the Stanzi.
There is a story of the discretion of Mantegna, which, with a natural courtesy, seems to have distinguished him personally. While working for Pope Innocent VIII. it happened that the payments for the work were not made with desirable regularity; the pope, visiting the artist at his work one day, asked him the meaning of a certain female figure which he had introduced. Andrea replied that he was trying to represent Ingratitude. The pope, understanding him at once, replied: "If you would place Ingratitude in fitting company, you should place Patience at her side." Andrea took the hint and said no more. It is satisfactory to know that in the end the pope not only paid up, but was "munificent" besides.
Finally, Mantegna returned to Mantua, where he built himself a magnificent house painted inside and out by his own hand, and in which he lived in great esteem and honour until his death in 1506. He was buried in the church of his patron St. Andrew, where his monument in bronze and several of his pictures are still to be seen.
The famous frieze of "The Triumph of Julius Cæsar"—which is now in Hampton Court Palace, having been bought by King Charles I. from the Duke of Mantua—was first designed by Mantegna for the hall of the palace of San Sebastiano at Mantua, and commenced in 1488, before he went to Rome, he finishing it after his return in 1492. There are nine panels or compartments in this frieze: "They are painted in distemper on twilled linen, which has been stretched on frames, and originally placed against the wall with arabesque pilasters dividing the compartments."
Mr. Alfred Marks issued a set of photographs some years ago, but they are not very clear, There is a good set of Italian woodcuts in chiaroscuro of the designs, by Andrea Andreani, done while the frieze was in the palace at Mantua, which have been engraved in various ways at different times with very various results.
The whole design is extremely rich and sumptuous, and full of the extraordinary designing power and command of inventive detail so characteristic of Mantegna.
"In the first compartment we have the opening of the procession: trumpets, incense burning, standards borne aloft by the victorious soldiers.