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Home , Andrea Mantegna, Lorenzo Costa, Madonna della Vittoria, Parnassus (Mantegna), Villa Doria Pamphili

Gardens and Grottoes in Later Works by Mantegna Carola Naumer

The artist, , consistently like that of her great-uncle, Leonello d’Este in .2 incorporated garden elements into a number of his . 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 in 1489 to paint the chapel demonstrate his knowledge of displayed in gardens. of the 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 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, , Elizabeth, and .6 The Towards the end of his career Mantegna created his most most extraordinary aspect of this is the garden niche beautiful garden paintings for Isabella d’Este, 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 and the three works for vivify pictorial space through creating a believable architec- her studio in Mantua, the , 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 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 (, , 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 and Mantegna’s lifelong interests in the natural world and classi- northern 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 .11 Mars and , 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. The rocky formation, shaped like the was an unusual choice for this function, although it would be mouth of a cave, evokes both the idea of the grotto and the used extensively in the Este family’s Roman gardens in the proscenium arch of the theater. The fusion of grotto and the- sixteenth century. ater is generally considered to be a sixteenth-century phenom- Oranges and lemons had multiple Christian and Classi- enon, but Mantegna’s painting provides evidence that this cal connotations during the Renaissance.9 Oranges and lem- process occurred earlier.13 In the foreground of the painting ons were associated with both Venus and the Virgin Mary. on the left, plucks his lyre in front of more citrus trees.14 The trees were considered symbols of chastity and purity, and A sixteenth-century inventory lists this figure as Orpheus, but brides in antiquity used their flowers in imitation of their use Apollo is a much more likely attribution because of the con- at the marriage of Zeus and Hera. Unusual in that the trees tinuing Este interest in the theme expressed in the grotto of

7 Lightbown 181-84. 12 Phyllis Williams Lehman, “Mantegna’s Parnassus,” In Samothracian Re- flections: Aspects of the Revival of the Antique (New Haven: Princeton 8 For general information of pergola types and functions see Claudia Lazzaro, UP, 1973): 100-4. The Garden (New Haven: Princeton UP, 1990) 30. 13 Naomi Miller, Heavenly Caves: Reflections on the Garden Grotto (New 9 For all these symbolic meanings see Mirella Levi d’Ancona, The Garden York: George Braziller, 1982) 59-60. See Figure 48, the seventeenth-cen- of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting (Florence: tury engraving by F. Chauveau of a design for a theater set in the shape of Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1977) 205-7 and 273-75. a grotto, which illustrates this idea.

10 Lightbown 192. 14 Phyllis Lehman identifies these plants as quince and laurel. This I think is incorrect, because bay laurel trees do not have flowers, whereas citrus trees 11 Lightbown 421. See also Clifford M. Brown and A. M. Lorenzoni, “The do, and they can flower and fruit at the same time. Also, the citrus trees Grotta of Isabella d’Este,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 89 (May-June 1977): framing the marriage bed of Mars and Venus are clearly oranges and lem- 161. ons, rather than quince and citrus as she has suggested. See Lehman 62.

44 GARDENS AND GROTTOES IN LATER WORKS BY MANTEGNA

Apollo and the Muses built into the garden of their villa on Judgement of Paris sarcophagus.19 We know Mantegna saw the in Rome. 15 this collection when he was in Rome, because of a number of We know that the setting of the Parnassus is a garden, his drawings based on statues within the collection. In addi- because the area in which the Muses dance is partially en- tion, the courtyard of his new house in Mantua, built after he closed by lattice-work fencing. The fence, visible in the middle returned from Rome, was very similar to the della Valle’s pal- ground on the right and on the left, serves to identify this area ace courtyard.20 These figures, as clear references to sculpture as garden space. Mantegna probably intended this fence to be displayed in Roman courtyard gardens, serve to reinforce the even more prominent, but the part of it that encircled the grove garden theme. of the Muses was partially painted over with pale green paint The garden theme is advanced by the inclusion of fences during a restoration.16 and cultivated plants, clearly features belonging to gardens, On the far left in the middle ground an angry not elements of untamed nature. In some cases, though, the shakes his hand at the cuckolding couple of Mars and Venus. grotto is intended to evoke the wild, potentially frightening Vulcan’s cave has some features of a grotto. A fantastic crys- aspect of the natural world. The hills above the figure of Mer- talline rock formation crowns it, but what appears to be a natu- cury are dotted with caves which were the inspiration for the ral waterfall springing from the left side of the cave mouth is grotto in the Renaissance garden. Both the spring and the a bundle of long pieces of silver wire.17 The splashing drop- grotto had connections to the Muses through ancient myth, lets of water at Vulcan’s feet are in fact sweat dripping from and they were important garden features in the Renaissance.21 Vulcan’s overheated chest. The wire refers to the nets made This painting combined classical antiquity, with specific gar- by Vulcan to capture Mars and Venus, and their depiction den references holding special significance for Isabella d’Este, here involves Mantegna’s response to a passage in Angelo her family and her intellectual circle, and it embodied Decembrio’s De polita litteraria, a monologue on art spoken Mantegna’s response to Leonello d’Este’s artistic challenge. by Leonello d’Este and responded to by members of his court.18 Pallas Expelling the Vices was the second mythological Claiming that painters can never match the literary descrip- garden painting Mantegna created for Isabella d’Este (Paris, tions of poets in their images, it particularly referred to Ovid’s Louvre, 1500-02, Figure 3).22 Isabella described the idea for it description of the fine nets created by Vulcan. Mantegna used as “a battle of Chastity and Lasciviousness, that is Pallas and his skill to insist that the painter can match the poet’s ability Diana combating vigorously against Venus and Cupid.”23 The in depicting extraordinarily fine details. goddess, Diana, however, is not pictured in the painting.24 and Pegasus stand together on the far right where Here we have two virgins, and Daphne, driving out a pool springs from the feet of Pegasus. These two figures Lust and the Vices from the garden.25 Three of the Cardinal illustrate the profound influence on Mantegna’s artistic de- Virtues, Temperance, Justice, and Fortitude, having been velopment of the sculpture displayed in the courtyard gardens driven out previously by the depravities which had been occu- and vigne of Rome. The figure of Mercury was based on the pying the place, return to the garden in an oval cloud forma- statue of this god in the della Valle collection, and he based tion.26 The fourth Virtue, Prudence, is walled up inside the the Venus in this painting on that depicted on the della Valle stone structure on the far right of the painting, and only a

This minor discrepancy aside, her article is essential for the antique, medi- Valle, now part of the Medici collection, is cat. 119 in Phyllis Pray Bober eval, and contemporary sources for many of the figures in this painting. and Ruth Rubenstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Hand- book of Sources (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986). 15 For information on the inventory list, see Nino Garavaglia, “Notes and Catalog,” The Complete Paintings of Mantegna (New York: Harry N. 20 For information on the della Valle family collection see Marjon van der Abrams, 1967) 117. For the Maggi engraving of the Villa d’Este on the Meulen, “Valle, della, Family” in An Encyclopedia of the History of Clas- Quirinal Hill in Rome that shows the grotto, see David R. Coffin, Gardens sical , ed. Nancy Thomson de Grummond (Westport, CT: and Gardening in Papal Rome (New Haven: Princeton UP, 1991) 85. Greenwood Press, 1996): 1144-45. For information on Mantegna’s court- yard see Lightbown 121. 16 Keith Christiansen, “The Studiolo of Isabella d’Este and Late Themes,” Andrea Mantegna: and Mantua (New York: George Braziller, 21 MacDougall 49. 1994): 66. 22 Christiansen 422-23. I was unable to find a clear reference to the date of 17 Lehman 69. this work in Lightbown.

18 Michael Baxandall, “A Dialogue on Art from the Court of Leonello d’Este,” 23 F. Canuti, Il Perugino, 2 vols. (Siena, 1931), doc. 316, quoted in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 26 (1963): 323. Christiansen 423.

19 Lehman 73. This is the central statue on the second level of Francesco de 24 The fact that Diana is not pictured in the work indicates that Isabella’s Hollanda’s drawing, Della Valle Palace Sculpture Garden, which can be comment referred to the idea for the work, rather than the completed paint- seen in Coffin, Gardens and Gardening 21. Phyllis Lehman has suggested ing. that Mantegna based the figure of Venus on the Villa Doria Pamphili Judg- ment of Paris. I think the connection to the della Valle sarcophagus is stron- 25 For the most thorough discussion of this work see Lightbown 201-8. ger, but they both reflect a standard classical type for the figure of Venus. The Villa Doria Pamphili Judgment of Paris is cat. 120 and the Della 26 Christiansen 429.

45 ATHANOR XX CAROLA NAUMER

white fluttering banner reflects her cry for help.27 Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola referring to driving In Pallas Expelling the Vices the action is framed by the Vices out of the Belvedere gardens at the Vatican.31 Clearly, arched trellises in the form of an arcade. On the left of the the danger of vice in the garden was a persistent problem for a painting are the entrances to the arch-shaped type of pergola, Christian culture. Several of the Vices are labeled, and covered with carefully detailed jasmine with its tiny white flow- Mantegna’s love of ancient scripts is visible in the banner that ers. The roof of this arcade is clearly visible, indicating the hangs off of the chaste Daphne who has been turned into a type of pergola used to cover pathways and provide shade from bay laurel. The figure of Wicked Love swirling her olive green the sun.28 drapery above her head as she stands on the back of the cen- A simple example of this type is shown in the taur in the pool is based on the same figural type and sources Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the first illustrated book that con- as the Venus in the Parnassus. tains fifteenth-century ideas on gardens and garden design. In Mantegna’s last picture for the Studiolo was to be of one of the book’s woodcuts, a series of wooden arches sup- Comus. The subject of the painting was intended to repeat the ported by Corinthian columns and draped with vines creates garden theme of the Parnassus and the Pallas but featured an arched passageway; benches on the sides create a place Janus and Mercury fighting the Vices while Comus, the god where one can stop and rest, out of the sun.29 In Pallas Expel- of “festive mirth,” played music with the two Venuses.32 ling the Vices Mantegna gives us a detailed view of how these Mantegna wrote to Isabella, saying, “I have almost finished garden structures actually looked. A later example of this type designing Your Excellency’s history of Comus, which I shall of pergola can be seen in Dupérac’s 1573 engraving of the go on pursuing as greatly as my fancy shall aid me.”33 But Villa d’Este at Tivoli (Figure 4). In the engraving a huge cov- Mantegna’s Comus was never finished. Instead, , ered pergola forms a cross in the center of the garden, and a Isabella’s new after Mantegna’s death, painted series of arched entrances lead to perpendicular paths on ei- Comus for her (Paris, Louvre, c. 1506, Figure 5).34 It is uncer- ther side of the central octagonal dome. tain whether Costa used Mantegna’s design for his painting. In Pallas Expelling the Vices, four pergolas, with Certainly Costa did not have the same sensibility that Mantegna espaliered citrus trees growing in front of them, form an ar- had for gardens. The architecturally overwrought gate does cade that frames the landscape on the right side of the paint- not seem to belong in the landscape, and suggests that if Costa ing. Below the citrus, rose bushes are held in place by a lat- used anything from Mantegna’s original, it was not the gar- ticed fence. Trellis frames can be seen clearly in the lower den details that give Mantegna’s works their grace and inter- right hand corner. This painted vegetal architecture must be est. based on real gardens in Ferrara. Boissard, writing of the Este A similar awkwardness in carrying out his ideas occurs gardens on the Quirinal later in the century, described them in the dome of Mantegna’s Funerary Chapel (Mantua, as having walls and trellises covered with “tapestries” of cit- Sant’Andrea, 1516, Figure 6). Mantegna’s lifelong interest in rus trees and flowers, particularly yellow and white jasmine.30 gardens was apparent in his funeral arrangements. Granted Mantegna’s painting provides evidence that this type of gar- the use of a chapel at Sant’Andrea in Mantua in 1504, he den practice was already in use by the Este family in the fif- bought a little piece of land outside it to retain the light in the teenth century. chapel. He built a little garden on this spot to use for reflec- In the painting, some of the Vices are wading in a pool. tion and meditation. The design for the chapel was based on The clearly defined edge of the pond indicates that it is a Mantegna’s decoration for the now destroyed chapel of the manmade rather than a natural feature of the landscape. Be- Vatican Villa Belvedere. His chapel was unfinished at the time low Pallas Athena’s left foot on the wooden edge of the pool is of his death in 1506, and his son Francesco probably com- the inscription from Ovid, “Otia si tollas periere cupidinis pleted it by 1516.35 arcus,” or “If you banish idleness, you defeat Cupid’s bows.” Certainly the use of some of his favorite garden themes This motto was echoed in a sixteenth-century poem by indicates that Mantegna specified the elements to be included

27 Christiansen 429. 31 For the direct translation of Ovid’s precept from Remedia amoris see Christiansen 429. For the discussion of the importance of this in the decora- 28 Lazzaro 2-3. tion of the room Isabella d’Este called her grotto see Brown and Lorenzoni 158. For a discussion of Giovanni Francesco Pico’s poem, De Venere et 29 Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (, 1499), reprint Cupidine expellendis see Ernst H. Gombrich, “Hypnerotomachiana,” Jour- by Garland Publishing, 1976. The illustrations in the original are not num- nal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 14 (1951):122. The seat of bered. An ancient source for this type of garden feature comes from the the Pico della Mirandola family also came under the rule of the Estensi. Barberini Nile Mosaic at Palestrina. The arched structure made of slats of wood with benches on which to sit is very like some of the pergolas in the 32 Christiansen 422-23. Hypnerotomachia, and may have been a source for this work. See Maurizio Calvesi, La “Pugna d’amore in sogno” di Francesco Colonna Romano 33 Lightbown 208. (Rome: Lithos, 1996) figs. 63 and 65. 34 Lightbown 423. 30 Coffin 207. 35 Lightbown 248-49.

46 GARDENS AND GROTTOES IN LATER WORKS BY MANTEGNA

in the chapel decoration, though not their ultimate arrange- which it is depicted provides evidence that Mantegna’s inter- ment. The dome is decorated with his favorite orange and est in garden elements persisted until the end of his life. lemon trees trained on lattice-work trellises alternating with Examining works from the end of his career has shown arched pergolas, but organized and painted in a stiff and awk- that gardens were a continuing preoccupation for this artist. ward way, without the vibrancy of Mantegna’s own hand in There is ample visual and literary evidence that Mantegna painting these simple elements. visited the collections of antique sculpture displayed in Ro- If we compare the of the dome with his late draw- man gardens, and that they had an impact on his work. His ing of an Orange Tree in a Vase, the difference in conception paintings for Francesco Gonzaga and Isabella d’Este illus- and execution is apparent (Paris, Louvre, c. 1490-1506, Fig- trate his familiarity with the special plantings traditional to ure 7). The drawing of an important garden feature, the citrus the gardens of the Este and comprise a previously unrecog- tree in a pot, is an example of a type of vegetal garden sculp- nized source of information on fifteenth-century garden de- ture that could be moved indoors to protect the plant and pro- sign and practice. His late paintings depict the complex, ar- vide fruit during the winter. This beautiful little drawing indi- caded architectural garden, anticipating gardens created by cates one of the features we might have found in Mantegna’s the Este family in Rome in the sixteenth century. gardens, either in his circular courtyard garden, or his medi- tation garden near his funerary chapel. The loving care with Florida State University

Images for “Gardens and in Later Works by Mantegna” have been generously underwritten by Truckee Meadows Community College where Carola Naumer, Ph.D., 1998, currently serves on the faculty.

Figure 1. Mantegna, The Madonna della Vittoria. Mantua, Santa Maria della Vittoria, 1496-97 (Foto Marburg/ArtResource, NY). 47 ATHANOR XX CAROLA NAUMER

Figure 2. Mantegna, Parnassus. Paris, Louvre, 1496-97 (Giraudon/ArtResource, NY).

48 GARDENS AND GROTTOES IN LATER WORKS BY MANTEGNA

Figure 3. Mantegna, Pallas Expelling the Vices. Paris, Louvre, 1500-1502 (Alinari/ArtResource, NY).

Figure 4. Étienne Dupérac, engraving of the Villa d’Este, Tivoli, detail of the pergola. , British Library, 1573 (by permission of the British Library). 49 ATHANOR XX CAROLA NAUMER

[above] Figure 5. Lorenzo Costa, Comus. Paris, Louvre, c. 1506 (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/ ArtResource, NY).

[left] Figure 6. Mantegna’s Funerary Chapel. Mantua, Sant’Andrea, 1516 (Alinari/ArtResource, NY). 50 GARDENS AND GROTTOES IN LATER WORKS BY MANTEGNA

Figure 7. Mantegna, Orange Tree in a Vase. Paris, Louvre, c. 1490-1506 (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/ArtResource, NY). 51