Saint Sébastien

1460–1506

Post: court painter

after 1474

His own house near the church of San Sebastiano

In Mantua Mantegna built a stately house near the church of San Sebastiano and adorned it with a multitude of paintings; the house can still be seen today, although the paintings no longer survive.

1474–1484

An unhappy decade in Mantua

The next ten years were not happy ones for Mantegna and Mantua: the artist grew irritable, his son died, as did Marquis Ludovico, his wife Barbara and his successor Federico, who had dubbed Mantegna a knight; artistic commissions in Mantua recommenced only with the election of Francesco II Gonzaga.

1488–1490

Rome: frescoes for Pope Innocent VIII

In 1488–1490 in Rome Mantegna, at the request of Pope Innocent VIII, decorated with frescoes the pope’s chapel in the Vatican Belvedere (later destroyed).

1490

Back in Mantua and closer to Isabella d’Este

Returning to Mantua in 1490, Mantegna embraced again his more literary and bitter vision of antiquity and entered into a close connection with the new marchesa, the cultured and intelligent Isabella d’Este.

after 1497

Isabella d’Este’s studiolo: mythological subjects

After 1497 Isabella d’Este commissioned Mantegna to turn the mythological themes devised by the court poet Paride Ceresara into paintings for her private apartment (studiolo) in the Palazzo Ducale; he left the “Legend of the God Comus” unfinished, and it was completed by his successor as court painter, Lorenzo Costa. Perugino and Correggio were also commissioned for the studiolo.