Gardens and Grottoes in Later Works by Mantegna Carola Naumer
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Gardens and Grottoes in Later Works by Mantegna Carola Naumer The Renaissance artist, Andrea Mantegna, consistently Mantua like that of her great-uncle, Leonello d’Este in Ferrara.2 incorporated garden elements into a number of his paintings. Her brother, Alfonso I d’Este, continued the family tradition Several of his major works feature garden architecture, in- of creating a space for contemplation and commissioning works cluding trellises, pergolas, pavilions, and grottoes, as well as on a theme to decorate it. Both Isabella and her brother chose lesser categories like bowers, woven fences, topiaries, and works involving garden themes, reflecting their family’s en- potted plants. An interest in contemporary garden design and thusiastic interest in this pastime.3 plantings enlivens many of his compositions, and his figures Mantegna had gone to Rome in 1489 to paint the chapel demonstrate his knowledge of sculpture displayed in gardens. of the Villa Belvedere, the Vatican residence surrounded by His works include references to antique sculptural works, both the papal gardens. He was called back to Mantua in 1490 when casually assembled fragments as well as well-preserved works the chapel was finished to help organize the wedding of displayed in an organized fashion. As one would expect from Francesco Gonzaga to Isabella d’Este, an alliance which would such a powerful sub-text in an artist’s work, garden motifs are combine the power and artistic patronage of two great houses.4 present in both his religious and mythological paintings. He Isabella’s artistic taste and her family’s interest in gardens used garden elements within his paintings to enhance the il- had a major influence on her new husband, Francesco. lusion of space, to augment the content, and to create a fusion Francesco Gonzaga, in gratitude for his victory against of Christian and classical spirituality. An examination of Charles VIII and the French army, commissioned the Madonna Mantegna’s work from the standpoint of garden themes and della Vittoria (Mantua, Santa Maria della Vittoria, 1496-97; elements provides a new way of viewing his work and its con- Figure 1).5 The work includes a portrait of the patron, as well text. At the same time, his work provides information on fif- as the patron saints of Mantua, Andrew and Longinus, with teenth-century garden architecture and plantings.1 Saints George, Michael, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist.6 The Towards the end of his career Mantegna created his most most extraordinary aspect of this painting is the garden niche beautiful garden paintings for Isabella d’Este, Renaissance art or apse that frames the central figures. This feature indicates collector and wife of the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga. These not only his interest in this design element, but its potential to include the Madonna della Vittoria and the three works for vivify pictorial space through creating a believable architec- her studio in Mantua, the Parnassus, Pallus Expelling the tural framework for his figures. The hortus conclusus, or en- Vices, and the unfinished Comus. Isabella was a passionate closed garden, symbolizes the virginity of the Virgin Mary, collector of art and antiquities, and she created a studio in but in this painting Mantegna has departed from the tradi- 1 The present article was adapted from my unpublished dissertation, Gar- due to his connections to the French. Isabella was particularly interested in dens and Groves: the Influence of Landscape Architecture in Paintings maintaining a good relationship with France. See Christine Shaw, Julius by Mantegna and Titian, Florida State University, 1998, which was di- II: the Warrior Pope (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) 262. rected by Professor Robert Neuman. Julius II was anxious to entertain the child, and various accounts de- scribe his efforts. Although his parents willingly left him with the Pope, 2 Ronald Lightbown, Mantegna: With a Complete Catalogue of the Paint- Isabella kept tabs on her son through an agent who wrote: “His Lordship ings, Drawings and Prints (Oxford: Phaidon-Christies’s Limited, 1986) [Federico] is lodged in the loveliest rooms there are in this palace [The 186. Villa Belvedere] and he eats in a very beautiful loggia looking out upon the whole plain, which can truly be called the Belvedere; in that loggia, the 3 For evidence of the Este interest and inventiveness in garden design, see rooms and gardens of orange trees and pines, every day is spent with the Elisabeth Blair MacDougall, Fountains, Statues, and Flowers (Washing- greatest pleasure and entertainment. Nearly every day there come to ton, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1994) 97. See also Trevor Dean, Land and give pleasure to his Lordship singers, musicians, gymnasts, and jugglers.” Power in Late Medieval Ferrara (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) 64. Later the agent described a banquet in honor of Federico. After dinner and Titian created his famous series of bacchanals for Alfonso I d’Este’s studio. music, they “went out to enjoy those pleasant greenswards.” For the above quotations see A. Luzio, “Federico Gonzaga ostaggio all corte di Giulio 4 Lightbown 129. II,” Archivio della R. società romana di storia patria (1886): 9:513-14 and 524, quoted in David R. Coffin, The Villa in the Life of Renaissance 5 Lightbown 177. Apparently relations with France improved, because later, Rome (New Haven: Princeton UP, 1979) 83. the son of Isabella d’Este, Federigo Gonzaga, spent time in the Villa Belve- dere as a child. Federigo was a hostage to Julius II because his father, even 6 Lightbown 179. though nominally in charge of Julius II’s army, was considered unreliable ATHANOR XX CAROLA NAUMER tional hortus conclusus with its real walls. Instead, he trans- both flower and fruit at the same time, they symbolized fertil- formed the idea of a walled garden through the use of the ity and lust. They were considered variously to be the apples pergola, creating a fresh, vibrant setting for the complex sacra of the Hesperides and the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (rep- conversazione required of the traditional altarpiece. Through resented in the relief at the base of the Virgin’s throne). the utilization of aspects of the natural world, garden motifs Mantegna used them to create a sensory image of heaven, added a richness to his work unprecedented in fifteenth-cen- whether it was the classical heaven of Mount Olympus or the tury Italian painting. Christian heaven of the Virgin Mary and her Son. The Madonna is shown as the Queen of Heaven in front Early Christianity had used pastoral imagery from an- of espaliered citrus trees woven into a pergola that encloses cient Roman works of art to embody the idea of Christ as the the Madonna and her companions in a beautiful bower.7 The good shepherd. Renaissance artists continued this process, pergola is in the shape of a niche with a wide Roman arch using antiquities, pastoral literature, and contemporary gar- decorated with delicately carved fretwork on top. The sky can dens to enrich their depiction of Christian iconography. Over be seen through openings in the rear of the niche. Exotic birds the course of his career, the synthesis of ancient and Christian add to the naturalistic effect of an implied paradise and reflect iconography with architectural garden features and plant sym- the contemporary garden practice of keeping exotic birds in bolism comprises a powerful theme in Mantegna’s painting. aviaries. The rear of the niche is made of curved pieces of Mantegna’s painting of the garden of the Muses was com- wood with cross pieces to hold them together, covered with missioned around the same time as the Madonna della Vittoria. various kinds of citrus plants, including oranges, blood or- The Parnassus was the first of two great mythological paint- anges, lemons, and large nobbly-skinned citron, trained over ings Mantegna made for the Studio (also called the Camerino the wooden supports. The plants are also in bloom, and white or the Studiolo) of Isabella d’Este (Paris, Louvre, 1496-97, citrus blossoms, known for their heavenly fragrance, nestle in Figure 2).10 These two paintings were the culmination of the dark green leaves. While many artists in Florence and Mantegna’s lifelong interests in the natural world and classi- northern Italy included botanical symbolism in their paint- cal antiquity which came together in gardens. ings of religious subjects, here they are transformed vertically Set in the garden of the Muses on Mount Helicon, the into a Renaissance garden feature, the arched pergola. Parnassus involved another prominent garden feature, the In the Renaissance, pergolas came in two types: a post grotto.11 Mars and Venus, framed by a bower of citrus trees, and lintel version and the type based on the arch, often con- stand in front of a marriage bed above a large, rocky arch in sisting of tree branches woven together to create a natural the center of the painting. The Muses dance in front of this vegetal arch or draped against a vaulted support structure like arch. Mantegna’s depiction of the Muses as a group of danc- the one in this painting.8 These delicate structures do not sur- ers may have been inspired by a drawing of the nine Muses in vive, and our knowledge of them comes primarily from draw- the sketch book of Ciriaco of Ancona, owned by Mantegna’s ings of the period. Mantegna’s painting provides another vi- friend, Felice Feliciano.12 Mantegna perhaps combined this sual source for this type of fragile garden feature, particularly image with elements of contemporary entertainment at the as to the kind of plants used to drape these structures. Citrus court of Isabella d’Este.