Mantua-maker

“ Females, particularly of the higher class, spend a great deal of their time in making ornaments for their persons, such as necklaces, finger rings, coronets and mantles of feathers. In those islands where there are missionaries and other European residents, they are learning to make neat hats and bonnets, and garments of cotton and silk. These native mantua-makers are said to evince great dexterity and skill in their new occupation. ”

“ Those purple mountains lay on the horizon, then, for certain; and the dresses of these peasant girls, who wear a great, knobbed, silver pin like an English ‘life-preserver’ through their hair behind, can hardly be much changed. The hopeful feeling of so bright a morning, and so exquisite a sunrise, can have been no stranger, even to an exiled lover’s breast; and Mantua itself must have broken on him in the prospect, with its towers, and walls, and water, pretty much as on a commonplace and matrimonial omnibus. ”

“ The modern French form manteau is used in English chiefly as a dressmaker’s term for a woman’s mantle. “Mantua,” much used in the 18th century for a similar garment, is probably a corruption of manteau, due to silk or other materials coming from the Italian town of that name, and known by the trade name of “mantuas.” The Spanish mantilla is a covering for the head and shoulders of white or black lace or other material, the characteristic head-dress of women in southern and central Spain. ”

“ The ladies all have some erudite associations with the place as giving the term of mantua-making to the art of dress, and most persons have heard that Mantua's law was once death to any he that uttered mortal drugs there, and that the place was till a few years since an Austrian fortress on the Mincio. Of Giulio Romano, and his works to Mantua, a good many have heard; and there is something known to the reader of the punctuated edition of Browning about Sordello. But of the Gonzagas of Mantua, and their duchy, what do you know, gentle reader? ”

“ Men of heavier science likewise nourished, and we read of jurists and astronomers born in those troublous days, as well as of a distinguished physician, who wrote a ponderous dictionary of simples, and dedicated it to King Robert of Naples. But by far the greatest Mantuan of this time was he of whom readers have heard something from a modern poet. He is the haughty Lombard soul, "in the movement of the eyes honest and slow," whom Dante, ascending the inexplicable heights of Purgatory, beheld; and who, summoning all himself, leaped to the heart of Virgil when he named Mantua: "O Mantuan! ”

“ A similar tribute was given him, with conspicuous candour, by Andrea Mantegna, who became famous at Mantua by reducing painting to some severity of law--a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. ”

“ You mean, my Lord, that you being Duke of Mantua, while she——If she knew that; knew it not merely as a fact, but as one knows the full savour of grief,—well, she was indeed the paragon you think; one might indeed say, bating one point, a virtuous woman.
DUKE
Thou hast understood, dear Diego, and I thank thee for it.
DIEGO
But I fear, my Lord, she did not know these things. Such as she, as yourself remarked, are not trained to conceive of duty, even in others. Passion moves them; and they believe in passion. You loved her; good. Why then, at Mantua as in Barbary. ”

“ Mantua had looked beautiful in her golden mantle of sunshine and silver veil of mist; there was a white, light fog on the water meadows and the lakes, and under it the willows waved and the tall reeds rustled; whilst the dark towers, the forked battlements, the vast Lombard walls, seemed to float on it like sombre vessels on a foamy sea. ”

“ Upon this subject it may not be useless to observe, that in ages less uncivilized, and nearer our own, the art of miniature was practised in Mantua by a great number of professors, among whom is Gio. de Russi, who, about the year 1455, illustrated for the Duke Borso [Pg 6] of Modena, the Bible of Este, in large folio, one of the rarest specimens of that distinguished collection. But in regard to pictures, I have been able to discover no artist who flourished in that place previous to Mantegna ”

“ I am happy to say that Mantegna's 'Triumph of Julius Cæsar' is in England at Hampton Court, having been bought from the Duke of Mantua by Charles I. These cartoons, nine in number, are sketches in water-colour or distemper on paper fixed on cloth. They are faded and dilapidated, as they well may be, considering the slightness of the materials and their age, about four hundred years. At the same time, they are, after the cartoons of Raphael (which formed part of the same art collection of Charles I.) , perhaps the most valuable and interesting relic of art in England. ”

“ Grander pomp than Mantua's there was never known in Italy. Felix Mantua!—and now it is all decaying, mouldering, sinking, fading; it is silent as death; the mists, the waters, the empty palaces, the walls that the marshes are eating little by little every day, the grass and the moss and the wild birds' nests on the roofs, on the temples, on the bridges, all are desolate in Mantua now. Yet is it beautiful in its loneliness, when the sunrise comes over the seas of reeds, and the towers and the arches are reflected in the pools and streams ”

“ But what goes to the brain at Mantua is the unlikely combination, the fantastic duet, of the palace and the lake. One naturally goes first into the oldest part, the red-brick castle of the older Marquises, in one of whose great square towers are Mantegna's really delightful frescoes: charming cupids, like fleecy clouds turned to babies, playing in a sky of the most marvellous blue, among garlands of green and of orange and lemon trees cut into triumphal arches, with the Marquis of Mantua and all the young swashbuckler Gonzagas underneath. ”

“ He made the same sharp twists and turns, perhaps, over two rumbling drawbridges; passed through the like long, covered, wooden bridge; and leaving the marshy water behind, approached the rusty gate of stagnant Mantua.
If ever a man were suited to his place of residence, and his place of residence to him, the lean Apothecary and Mantua came together in a perfect fitness of things. It may have been more stirring then, perhaps. If so, the Apothecary was a man in advance of his time, and knew what Mantua would be, in eighteen hundred and forty-four. ”

“ Strange human or half-human kennels, one trusts never really put to use, and built as a mere brutal jest by a Duke of Mantua smarting under the sway of some saturnine little monster, like the ones who stand at the knee of Mantegna's frescoed Gonzagas.
After seeing the Castello and the Corte Nuova one naturally thinks it one's duty to go and see the little Palazzo del Te, just outside the town. Inconceivable frescoes, colossal, sprawling gods and goddesses, all chalk and brick dust, enough to make Rafael, who was responsible for them through his abominable pupils, turn for ever in his coffin. ”

“ The whole world being darkened over with plague and war, I had the greatest difficulty in reaching Mantua. However, in the end, I got there, and looked about for work to do, which I obtained from a Maestro Niccolo of Milan, goldsmith to the Duke of Mantua. ”

“ The school of the Mantegni becoming extinct in Mantua, another of a more beautiful and distinguished character arose, sufficient to excite the envy even of Rome. Duke Federigo had succeeded to Francesco, a prince of much enlargement of mind, and so much devoted to the fine arts, that no artist of common genius would have been equal to execute his ideas. Through the interest of Baldassar Castiglione, then extremely intimate with Raffaello, Giulio Romano was prevailed upon to visit Mantua, where he became at once engineer and painter to Duke Frederic. ”

“ I have before treated of several of Andrea's scholars, natives of Vicenza; and another of Cremona, I shall have to mention in due time. Yet the entire series of this school will not be completed with these names, as there are specimens of many unknown artists executed in fresco, interspersed throughout different places in Mantua. They are for the most part to be met with on the façades of buildings, and in the churches; while in several of the galleries we may observe pictures in oil, which appear to exhibit more of the defects than of the excellences of a Mantegna. ”

“ She combined the tenderness of a woman with the mental vigor of a man. Fair, witty, gracious, and a noted beauty, she was equally at home discussing art and literature with the masters, and grave political problems with popes and kings, arranging fêtes, ordering a picture, selecting a brocade, or playing with a child.
The old and imposing palace of Mantua to this day shows traces of the taste and generosity of its most distinguished mistress. She filled it with rare books, exquisite tapestries, and curios of all sorts, chosen with the discrimination of a connoisseur. ”

“ But that night Mantua, as though jealous that a stranger from beyond the snowy mountains on the Lombard frontier should have come there to seize its secrets from out of its dark old palaces, that have seen so many crimes and kept so many mysteries untold, Mantua, as though angered against him, poured into his throat the poison of her subtle vapours, of her fever mists, that lurk for ever amidst her long fields of reeds and her pale-gleaming water-meadows. ”

“ Alfred Marks issued a set of photographs some years ago, but they are not very clear, 330 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. ”

“ We lost sight of Mantua almost immediately, for, travelling along a dead flat and by roads whose sides are lined with high hedges of acacia or orchards thickly planted, you never see any place or building until you have absolutely arrived at it. ”

“ The portraits are of utmost dignity and authority. In dealing with real people Mantegna’s style is less pinched than in his classical decorations. If I have insisted on the point of illusionism, it is only because the audacious logic of Correggio and a host of baroque followers for a century and more really grows out of this scheme at Mantua. ”

“ The bard of Mantua, to whose tomb genius in all ages makes its willing pilgrimage, never presents his hero in a more attractive light, than when he represents him, “tot volvere casus,” rolling his misfortunes forward, as a river bearing all opposition before it.
I am well satisfied that it is a sure passport to mental excellence. Science has no summit too lofty for its ascent—literature has no gate too strong for its entrance. The graces collect around it, and the laurel comes at its bidding. ”

“ Mantua will be not ill rid of Luitbrand d'Este.'
Then he again, in obstinacy and against all the priest's better knowledge as a Mantuan, had insisted and said, 'the man is innocent.'
And the sun had gone down as he had spoken, and the priest had smiled—a smile cold as a dagger's blade—perhaps recalling sins confessed to him of love that had changed to hate, of fierce delight ending in as fierce a death-blow. Mantua in her day has seen so much alike of love and hate. ”

“ He gathers anxiously the precious drops of blood from his weapon into the phial from which the vinegar mixed with gall was poured, and, forsaking his life of soldier, he wanders with his new-won faith and his priceless treasure to Mantua, where it is destined to work famous miracles, and to be the most valued possession of the city to all after-time. ”

“ As for the masters of our arts in Mantua, besides what has been said of them up to the time of Giulio Romano, I must say that he sowed the seeds of his art in Mantua and throughout all Lombardy in such a manner that there have been able men there ever since, and his own works are every day more clearly recognized as good and worthy of praise. ”

“ This picture—which represents the Virgin and Child on a throne, in an arbour of fruit and flowers, between the archangels, Michael and St Maurice, in complete armour, with the patron saints of Mantua and the infant St John in the front, and the Marquis Ludovico of Mantua and his wife, Isabella D'Este, kneeling to return thanks—was painted by Mantegna at the age of seventy years; and, as if the art of the man had mellowed with time, it is the softest and tenderest of his pictures in execution. A beautiful Madonna of Mantegna's, still later in time, is in the National Gallery. ”

“ In another little cabinet made for medals, which has been beautifully wrought in ebony and ivory by one Francesco da Volterra, who has no equal in such works, he has some little antique figures in bronze, which could not be more beautiful than they are.
In short, between the last time that I saw Mantua and this year of 1566, when I have revisited that city, it has become so much more beautiful and ornate, that, if I had not seen it for myself, I would not believe [Pg 42] it; and, what is more, the craftsmen have multiplied there, and they still continue to multiply. ”