With regard to the circumstances of Mantegna’s biography, it may be said briefly that, though of humble birth, he spent the greater portion of his life at Court and in the service of princes.  It was in 1456, after he had distinguished himself by the Paduan frescoes, that he first received an invitation from the Marquis Lodovico Gonzaga.  Of this sovereign I have already had occasion to speak.[205] Reared by Vittorino da Feltre, to whom his father had committed almost unlimited authority, Lodovico had early learned to estimate the real advantages of culture.  It was now his object to render his capital no less illustrious by art than by the residence of learned men.  With this view he offered Mantegna a salary of fifteen ducats a month, together with lodging, corn, and fuel—­provided the painter would place his talents at his service.  Mantegna accepted the invitation; but numerous engagements prevented him from transferring his household from Padua to Mantua until the year 1460.  From that date onwards to 1506, when he died, Mantegna remained attached to the Gonzaga family serving three Marquises in succession, and adorning their palaces, chapels, and country-seats with frescoes now, alas! almost entirely ruined.  The grants of land and presents he received in addition to his salary, enabled him to build a villa at Buscoldo, where he resided during the summer, as well as to erect a sumptuous mansion in the capital.

Between Mantua, Goito, and Buscoldo, Mantegna spent the last forty-six years of his life in continual employment, broken only by a short visit to Florence in 1466, and another to Bologna in 1472,[206] and by a longer residence in Rome between the years 1488 and 1490.  During the latter period Innocent VIII. was Pope.  He had built a chapel in the Belvedere of the Vatican, and wished the greatest painter of the day to decorate it.  Therefore he wrote to Francesco, Marquis of Mantua, requesting that he might avail himself of Mantegna’s skill.  Francesco, though unwilling to part with his painter in ordinary, thought it unadvisable to disappoint the Pope.  Accordingly he dubbed Mantegna knight, and sent him to Rome.  The chapel painted in fresco for Innocent was ruthlessly destroyed by Pius VI.; and thus the world has lost one of Mantegna’s masterpieces, executed while his genius was at its zenith.  On his return to Mantua he finished the decorations of the Castello of the Gonzaghi, and completed his greatest surviving work, the “Triumph of Julius Caesar.”

By his wife, Nicolosia, the sister of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, Mantegna had several children, one of whom, Francesco, adopted painting as a trade.  The great artist was by temper arrogant and haughty; nor could he succeed in living peaceably with any of his neighbours.  It appears that he spent habitually more money than he could well afford, freely indulging his taste for magnificence, and disbursing large sums in the purchase of curiosities.  Long before his