Andrea Mantegna

He was apprenticed, at age 11, to Francesco Squarcione (1394/7-1468). When he was seventeen, his apprenticeship ended when he sued Squarcione for his freedom and a court granted it.

Mantegna worked in fresco, painting on canvas and wood with distemper (egg/water based paint), pen and ink drawing, engraving and sculpture (although nothing seems to remain of his sculpture). Oil painting came to Italy a little too late for Mantegna.

Some of his earliest works are the frescos in the Ovetari chapel in the Chiesa degli Eremitani (Church of the Hermits of St Augustine) in Padua. Mantegna did a series of frescos illustrating events in the lives of St James and St Christopher. The Ovetari chapel neighbors the Arena Chapel home to frescos of Giotto. Most of the church was destroyed in 1944 on March 11 by allied bombers.

Ludovico III Gonzaga died of the plague in 1478 and his son Federico became Duke. Federico lasted only six years as Duke. In 1484, Francesco II, at age 18, took the Ducal reins.

Mantegna designed and managed the construction of a house in Mantua for himself and his family. It was begun in 1476 and only finished in 1494. Mantegna only got to use if for a few years before the new Duke, Francesco II Gonzaga, claimed the building and made it a part of his new town house: Palazzo di San Sebastiano.

In 1487, Pope Innocent VIII asked Francesco II Gonzaga to send Mantegna to Rome to decorate a chapel. Francesco complied and sent Mantegna to Rome in 1488. He was there until 1490. For the Pope he decorated the chapel, but little is known of the decoration because it was later torn down by Pope Pius VI in 1780.

Mantegna probably hoped to find a Roman patron and move to Rome, to get out of the grasp of Federico Gonzaga. In this he failed.

The candle carries an inscription in this final St. Sebastian picture:

NINIL NISI DIVINUM STABILE EST: CAETERA FUMUS [Nothing is eternal but God: all else is like smoke.]

At the end of the Fifteenth century, 1492 Columbus discovered land to the West of Europe. At the beginning of the new century a Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, explored the West Indies and gave his name to two new continents. The Sixteenth century was to be the great age of exploration.

In 1494 the first stirrings of Protestantism began in Florence with Fra Savonarola who preached against the wealth of the Church and all worldly vanities (including art and books). By 1498 Savonarola had been suppressed by the Vatican in the most forceful way possible. By order of the Pope he was captured, tried, and executed. The execution was dramatic and public. He was drawn and quartered and burned at the stake in a square in the center of Florence.

At the beginning of the Sixteenth century, Leonardo is painting the Last Supper in the refretory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Michaelangelo is creating the David for Florence. Dürer is visiting Italy from the Germany and painting The Feast of Rose Garlands for the Church of San Bartolomeo in Venice. Mantegna is reaching the end of his career, still working in Mantua, but out of style with the dynamic changes taking place in Rome at the beginning of the new century.

In 1506 Montegna dies.