ITALIAN SCHOOL OF ENGRAVING. 



write : but the outlines and fliadows arc dry and hard, and 

 the forms vulgar and heavy. It is only by comparing Pol- 

 lajuolo with his contemporaries and predecefTors, that we 

 learn to refped his performances ; and it has even been faid 

 of his moft cek-bratcd work, (" The Martyrdom of St. Se- 

 ballian,") that it " exhibits only a group of half naked and 

 vulgar wretches difchargisg their arrows at a miferable 

 fellow-creature, who, by changing places with one of his 

 murderers, might with equal propriety become a murderer 

 himfelf :" fo little attention was paid even in Italy, at this 

 early period, to charadler and exprcfnon." Landfecr's 

 Left u res. 



Like moft of the contemporary artifts of liis country, 

 PoUajuoli praftifed occalionally the feveral branches of imi- 

 tative art, which have fince become diftincl profeffions, and 

 was at once goldfmith, medallift, fculptor in reiievo, painter, 

 and engraver with the burin. Bartolucci v.-as his principal, 

 or at lead his iirft inllrudor ; but he worked with confider- 

 able credit, under Ghiberti, on the juftly celebrated metal 

 doors of the church of St. John at Florence. He alfo exe- 

 cuted the monument of pope Sixtus IV., which originally 

 f*ood in the chapel of that name, and has fince been removed 

 by the order of Urban VIII. to the church of St. Peter; 

 and that of Innocent VIII. ; which are both in bronze, and 

 are works of great merit. The plan of the Bclvidere palace 

 has been likevvife attributed to liim. 



Of the prints now extant from the graver of PoUajuoli, 

 we know only of the following : 



The above-mentioned large folio, wherein fix men are 

 reprefented fighting with fwords in a foreft ; an " Holy Fa- 

 mily," alfo in folio ; and two fmaller prints of '■ The La- 

 fcours of Hercules," in one of v.hich he is engaged with 

 Art2v.c, and in the other removing a column. 



An obfcure village near Mantua gave birth to the che- 

 valier Andrea Mantegna, in the year 1451. Born in indi- 

 gence, he was obliged in his early youth to tend Iheep for 

 a fubfiilence ; but being gifted by nature with a happy 

 genius for the imitative arts, he employed all his leifure in 

 endeavouring to draw the objefts around him. F. Squar- 

 cione, that obfervant protestor of the fine arts, who was 

 thence furnamed the Father of Painters, difcovering the dif- 

 pofition of our young (hepherd for painting, took charge of 

 his education ; and conceiving for him an ardent affedion, 

 which increafcd with the increafing merit of Mantegna, 

 finally created him heir to his fortune. 



Mantegna married the daughter of John Bel'ino of Ve- 

 nice'. Correggio became his dilciple, and the duke of Mantua 

 his warm admirer and patron : from his hands our artift re- 

 ceived the honour of knighthood ; and for him he painted 

 that celebrated pidure, which he afterwards engraved, and 

 which is now in the royal palace at Hampton-Court, of the 

 " Triumph of Juhus Csefar." 



He executed feveral great works for pope Innocent VIII., 

 who. invited him for that purpofe to Rome. He painted an 

 altar-piece for the church of St. Sophia of Padua ; and ftveral 

 piiStures for that of St. Juilinian, particularly one whicli has 

 been much admired for its colouring as well as difigr, in a 

 chapel belonging to that church ; finally, lie died in the 

 fame city (of Padua), highly honotired and admired, in the 

 yeari^ij; and a tomb, furmountcd by his buft, was raifcd 

 to his memory in the church of St. Andrew. 



Mantegna contributed much to the advancomenl of Italian 

 engraving. "By his more intimate knowledge of tlie antique, 

 and his Tuperior ufe of that knowledge, he improved the 

 drawing, without materially altering tlic ftyle of engraving 

 of Pollajuolo, by whom he is prefumed to have been in- 

 ftruttcd in the new an. Indeed, as the local energies and 



praftical perfeftions of painting were at this time fo impcr- 

 feiElly developed, it was much n-.orc natural, and i:i the fame 

 degree more wife, for engraving to imitate pen vud ink 

 drawings than to imitate piftures ; and the bcil of Man- 

 tegna's prints derive a pecuharity of cliarafter ar.d of val'.:e 

 from this circumdance. By intermingling the appearance 

 of the finer ftrokcs of the pen, ls it worked upward, in Ins 

 (hadows he foftened and mellowed tliv itronger lines ; fo that 

 the whole became a more appropriate vehicle of the obfcii- 

 rity he had in view : and the exait iin-)ilarity of his ilyle of 

 engraving to his own mode of drav.ing fufiiciently fiicv.f, 

 that to imitate pen and ink drawings was the boundary of 

 his aiin. 



" A verj' curious pen and ink drawing from the hand of 

 Mantegna, of which the fubjeCt is an atter-pt to relt-ore a!i 

 allegorical pidurc which Apelles pain'.ed from an event in 

 his own life, is now in the pofleinun of Mr. Weil, prefidenl 

 of the Royal Academy. He engraved, from his own de- 

 figns, fometimes on copper, and fomelimes, as it is faid, 

 upon tin. " In his engravings, as in his piftures, his con- 

 tours are of a grand and decided charatler, fuilained 

 throughout by much of what has fince been termed the 

 noble fimplicity of the Roman fchool. His prints are not 

 few ; but confidering the early period at which they were 

 performed, are much more extraordinary than nun:erous. 

 The two " Labours of Hercules," in the Crachcrodian 

 CoUe&ion, ought probably to be reckoned among the 

 earliefl of Mantegna's engravings. Like thole of PoUdjuoIi, 

 they are printed on reddifli paper, and are dcfigncd in th • 

 fame heavy ftyle. His « Bacchanalian Procelnon" has dill 

 forrie confiderable remains of Gothic groffnefs ; but he has 

 here Ihewn his talent in compofition, and the fore-fliortenings 

 that occur are far better exprefied than we have hitherto 

 feen. The compofition of his " Battle of Sea-Gods and 

 Tritons" is wildly grand, with fuch a mixture of the gro- 

 tofque, as may lecm not improperly to belong to a fubjeft 

 which we fhoidd efteem out of nature, or beyond the limits 

 of the material world. The combatants in this battle arc 

 the offspring of his own fertile and vigorous fancy, gene- 

 rated by the fculpture of antiquity. Befide the Irilons and 

 fea-monders, here are the general forms of horfes and men ; 

 but, like the tawns and fylvan deities of the Greeks, tlieir 

 natures partake of the element in wliich they exid : — at 

 lead, the fpeclator is led to perceive that this intention ex- 

 ifted in the mind of the artid, and that (in the words of 

 .Ariel's fong) they have undergone " a fea-change, into 

 fomcthing rich and ftrange." Inltead of hair, fea-weed dc-. 

 corates the human heads ; and the fins and fcales of marine 

 animal.'; help to conditute the horfes and tritons. Their 

 weapons, too, are congenial witli themlelvcs : they fight 

 with fifli and filh-bones, and the ikuU of Ibme unknown in- 

 habitant of the deep ferves as a fliield. 



" The heads of the horfes, as well as thofe of the fea-gods, 

 are animated by no inconiiderable portion of the ideal gran- 

 deur of the antique ; the anatomical markings, the coniiant 

 objcft of Mantegna's attention, are alio fuccefsfuUy ftudied 

 from the fame inedimable fourceof information : and in the 

 early imprefilons, the chiarofcuro lias more breadth, as well 

 as depth, than feenis to belong to the Italian art of this 

 early period, and is conducted through the whole with 

 maderly addrefs. 



" A more flow and fedate magnificence moves his triiim- 

 phal proceflion of Julius Ca;far. The wild imagination 

 which revels in his recedes of the ocean, and his bacchana- 

 lian proceffions, is nearly excluded from . hence ; it but 

 ferves, in the flaming of the candelabra, to gleam through 

 « the fjioih of nation?, and the pomp of wars ;" or faintly 

 ■; S ? difcovers 



