Mantua in the Renaissance

Vittorino da Feltre

Mantua was a land of good fortune: throughout the entire Renaissance it had only one ruling family and was spared the tumult of revolution, court murders, and coups. When Luigi Gonzaga assumed leadership (1328), the position of his house was so secure that he could occasionally leave his capital and serve as a mercenary captain for other cities—this custom was followed by several generations of his successors. His descendant Gian Francesco I was honored with the title of Marquis by Emperor Sigismund in 1432. This title became hereditary in the Gonzaga family until the higher title of Duke was granted to them (1530). Gian was a good ruler; he drained marshes, advanced agriculture and industry, supported the arts, and brought one of the noblest figures in the history of education to Mantua to instruct his children.

Vittorino took his family name from his birthplace, the town of Feltre, in northeastern Italy. Since the passion for studying ancient learning, which spread like a contagious disease throughout Italy, had also infected him, he went to Padua and studied Latin, Greek, mathematics, and rhetoric under various masters; he repaid one of his teachers by performing domestic service in his house. After graduating from the university, he opened a school for boys. He selected his pupils more on the basis of talent and aptitude than on birth or wealth; he took fees from the wealthier students according to their means and admitted poor pupils free of charge. He would not tolerate idlers, demanded hard work, and enforced strict discipline. Since this was difficult in the noisy environment of a university city, Vittorino moved his school to Venice (1424). In 1425 he accepted the invitation of Gian Francesco to come to Mantua and instruct a select group of boys and girls. This group included four sons and one daughter of the Marquis, a daughter of Francesco Sforza, and several other children of Italian rulers.

The Marquis placed at the disposal of the school a villa named Casa Giocosa (House of Joy). Vittorino transformed it into a semi-monastic institution where he and his pupils lived simply, ate sensibly, and constantly observed the ancient ideal motto that "a sound mind in a sound body." Vittorino himself was as much an athlete as a scholar—he was a skilled fencer and horseman and was so accustomed to changes in weather that he wore the same clothing winter and summer and walked in the harshest cold wearing wooden sandals. Since he was prone to anger and sensual impulses, he subdued his passions every day by periodic fasting and self-flagellation; his contemporaries believed that he remained celibate until his death.

To purify instincts and form healthy character in his pupils, he first required them to participate regularly in religious observances; he instilled strong religious feelings in them; he severely condemned blasphemy and foul or unseemly language; he punished angry disputes harshly; and he regarded lying as almost a major crime. It was by no means necessary to tell him that his pupils were princes who might one day face the heavy duties of governing a state or conducting a war. To make their bodies healthy and strong, he established various sports in his school, such as running, riding, jumping, wrestling, fencing, and military exercises; he accustomed the students to endure hardships without complaint or showing distress. Although in ethics he followed medieval traditions, he strongly opposed contempt for the body; he shared with the ancient Greeks the view that physical health played an important role in elevating human personality. Just as he strengthened his pupils' bodies through hard work and heroic exercises, and their spirits through the power of faith and firm discipline, he also refined their taste with instruction in painting and music and polished their minds with mathematics, Latin, Greek, and ancient literature. His goal was to blend in them the virtues of the Christian faith with the enlightened paganism and aesthetic sensitivity of Renaissance men. The Renaissance ideal of the "complete man," consisting of physical health, spiritual strength, and intellectual independence, first found its perfect form in Vittorino da Feltre.

The fame of his educational methods first spread throughout Italy, and then beyond it. Many people came to the city not to see the Marquis of Mantua but to see its famous teacher. Abbots requested from Gian Francesco the honor of sending their children to the "school of princes," and he granted their requests. Famous men such as Federico of Urbino, Francesco da Castiglione, and Taddeo Manfredi passed through his formative school. The most talented pupils enjoyed special favor from the master, lived under the same roof with him, and benefited from the precious advantage of contact with his purity and wisdom. Vittorino insisted that poor but gifted children should also be admitted to his school; he persuaded the Marquis to provide money, facilities, and teaching assistance for the maintenance and education of sixty poor pupils; when the extra budget was insufficient, Vittorino paid the difference from his own modest income. When he left this world (1446), it was found that he had not even left money for his own shroud and burial.

Ludovico Gonzaga, who succeeded Gian Francesco as Marquis of Mantua (1444), was a credit to his teacher. When Vittorino undertook his education, he was an eleven-year-old boy, fat and slow in movement. Vittorino taught him to master his appetite and prepare himself for the heavy duties of government. Ludovico performed these duties well and left behind a prosperous country. Like a true Renaissance ruler, he devoted part of his wealth to the advancement of literature and art. He founded an excellent library, most of whose books concerned classical Latin literature; he employed miniaturists to illuminate copies of the Aeneid and the Divine Comedy. He established the first printing press in Mantua. Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola, Filelfo, Guarino da Verona, and Platina were among the humanists who once enjoyed his generosity and lived at his court. Leone Battista Alberti came from Florence at his invitation and built the chapel of the Incoronata in the cathedral, as well as the churches of Sant'Andrea and San Sebastiano. In 1460 the Marquis took into his service one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance.

Andrea Mantegna: 1431-1506

Andrea Mantegna was born thirteen years before Botticelli in Isola di Cartura, near Padua. If we wish to evaluate Mantegna's artistic perfection, we must go back. When he was only ten years old, he enrolled in the painters' guild of Padua. Francesco Squarcione was at that time the most famous teacher of painting, not only in Padua but in all Italy. Andrea entered his school and progressed so rapidly that Squarcione took him into his own house and adopted him as a son. Squarcione, inspired by the humanists, brought to his workshop the important remains of classical sculpture and architecture that he could obtain and carry, and instructed his pupils to take them as strong, orderly, and harmonious models and to draw from them as much as possible. Mantegna obeyed with enthusiasm; he fell in love with the ancient history of Rome, exalted its heroes to an ideal level, and admired its art so much that half of his pictures have Roman architectural backgrounds and half of his figures, whatever their nation or language, have Roman form and dress. His art both gained and lost from this passion; from these models he learned a regal majesty and also the pure seriousness of design, but he never freed his painting from the dry calm of sculptural forms. When Donatello came to Padua, Mantegna, who was still a twelve-year-old child, once again felt the influence of ancient statues, combined with a powerful impulse toward realism. At the same time he was fascinated by the new science of perspective recently invented by Masolino, Uccello, and Masaccio; Andrea studied all its rules and astonished his contemporaries with foreshortenings that were so realistic as to be almost ugly.

In 1448 Squarcione received a commission for frescoes in the church of the Eremitani friars in Padua, and assigned it to two of his favorite pupils, Niccolò Pizzolo and Mantegna. Niccolò completed one panel in an excellent style, but lost his life in a quarrel after finishing it. Andrea, who was now seventeen, continued the work, and the eight panels he painted over the next seven years made him famous throughout Italy. The subjects were medieval, but the execution was revolutionary: ancient architectural backgrounds were drawn with all their details; powerful bodies and shining armor of Roman soldiers were mingled with the sorrowful faces of saints; paganism and Christianity were fused in these frescoes more than in all the books of the humanists. Painting here attained a new precision and delicacy, and perspective reached a perfection that showed great effort. Art had rarely seen forms of such grandeur in posture and gesture as the soldier guarding a saint before a Roman judge; or anything so terrible and realistic as the executioner raising his club to crush the brain of one of the martyrs. Painters came from distant cities to study the technical aspects of that young Paduan's art—all these frescoes, except two, were destroyed in the Second World War.

Jacopo Bellini, himself a famous painter and in that year (1454) the father of painters who would later eclipse his fame, saw these panels while they were being painted and was so pleased with Andrea that he offered his own daughter in marriage to him. Mantegna accepted the proposal. Squarcione opposed this marriage and retaliated for Mantegna's flight from his house by condemning his frescoes as a dry and half-hearted imitation of ancient marble statues. More interestingly, the Bellinis were able to make Andrea understand that there was some truth in Squarcione's accusation; and even more noteworthy is that the hot-tempered painter accepted the criticism and profited from it, turning his attention from sculptural attitudes to the careful observation of life in all its details and activities. In the last two panels of the Eremitani frescoes, he inserted ten portraits of contemporaries, one of whom was the fat and short Squarcione.

Mantegna, having broken his contract with his teacher, was free to accept numerous invitations. Ludovico Gonzaga gave him a commission in Mantua (1456); Andrea postponed this commission for four years, during which he painted a polyptych for the church of San Zeno that has since attracted pilgrims and tourists. In the central panel of this altarpiece, amid a magnificent ensemble of columns, cornices, and splendid triangular pediments, the Virgin holds her child in her arms while singing angels surround them; in the lower part of this panel is the Crucifixion showing Roman soldiers casting lots for Christ's garments; and on the left, the Garden of Olives provided a harsh landscape that Leonardo apparently studied for his Virgin of the Rocks. This polyptych is one of the great paintings of the Renaissance.

After three years in Verona, Mantegna finally agreed to go to Mantua (1460); except for short stays in Florence and Bologna, and two years in Rome, he remained in Mantua until the end of his life. Ludovico gave him a house, fuel, and grain and assigned him a monthly salary of fifteen ducats (375 dollars). Andrea decorated the palaces, chapels, and villas of three marquises of the ruling line; the only surviving works of his in Mantua are his famous frescoes in the Ducal Palace, especially in one of its halls called the Camera degli Sposi (Chamber of the Newlyweds). This chamber was built and named for the betrothal celebration of Federico, son of Ludovico, with Margaret of Bavaria. The subject of the fresco was only the ruling family—namely the Marquis himself, his wife, his children, several courtiers, and Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga upon his return from Rome, while his father Ludovico welcomes him. This chamber was in truth an art museum of realistic portraits, in which Mantegna himself also appeared. In this portrait he looks older than his age (forty-three years), with wrinkles visible on his face and hollows under his eyes.

Ludovico was also aging rapidly; the last years of his life were darkened by suffering and sorrow. Two of his daughters developed physical defects; war consumed all his revenues; in 1478 the plague devastated Mantua so severely that economic life almost stopped, state revenues declined, and Mantegna's salary, like the pay of many others, was delayed for a time. Mantegna wrote a reproachful letter to Ludovico, who replied with extraordinary nobility asking him to be patient. The plague passed, but Ludovico did not survive it. Under Federico (1478-1484), son of Ludovico, Mantegna began his most beautiful work, The Triumph of Caesar, and completed it under his son Gian Francesco (1484-1519). These nine canvases painted in tempera for the old courtyard of the Ducal Palace were later sold by one of the needy marquises to Charles I of England and are now in Hampton Court. The great frieze, about twenty-seven meters long, shows a moving procession of soldiers, priests, captives, slaves, musicians, beggars, elephants, oxen, banners, war spoils, trophies, and souvenirs, all following the Caesar—who rides in a chariot with a crown placed on his head by the goddess of Victory. Here Mantegna returns to his first love, ancient Rome, and once again paints like a sculptor; nevertheless, his figures are full of life and movement; despite the beautiful details, the viewer's eye is drawn to that majestic coronation; in this work, the painter's skills in composition, design, perspective, and accuracy of observation are wonderfully concentrated and turn it into his masterpiece.

During the seven years from accepting the commission for The Triumph of Caesar until its completion, Mantegna accepted an invitation from Pope Innocent VIII and painted several frescoes (1488-1489) that were later destroyed in the misfortunes of Rome. Mantegna, complaining of the Pope's stinginess—he in turn complained of the artist's impatience—returned to Mantua and completed his fruitful career by painting a hundred pictures on religious subjects; he had now forgotten Caesar and turned to Christ. The most famous and least pleasing of these images was The Dead Christ, now in the Brera. In this picture, Christ lies on his back with his feet toward the viewer, and looks more like a sleeping condottiere than a worn-out "God."

In his old age Mantegna painted one pagan picture. In Parnassus, now in the Louvre, he set aside his usual decision to capture truth and tried to pay more attention to the element of beauty; for a moment he surrendered to an amoral mythological tale and painted a naked Venus wearing a helmet, seated on Mount Parnassus beside her warrior lover Mars, while at the foot of the mountain Apollo and the Muses praise her with dance and song. One of these Muses is probably the incomparable wife of Marquis Gian Francesco, Isabella d'Este, who at that time was the first lady of that marquisate. This was Mantegna's last great painting. The last years of his life were filled with sorrow due to illness, bad temper, and mounting debts. He was upset by Isabella's audacity in determining the details of the pictures she requested from him; in deep grief he withdrew into solitude; he sold a large part of his art collection and finally his own house. In 1505 Isabella described him as "tearful and distraught, with so sunken a face that he seemed to me more dead than alive." A year later, at the age of seventy-five, he bade farewell to this mortal world. On his tomb in Sant'Andrea there is a bronze bust that may be the work of Mantegna himself. This bust, with a realism tainted by anger, reveals the bitterness and exhaustion of a genius who had worn himself out for half a century in his art. Those who desire "to live forever" must pay the price with their lives.

The First Lady of the World

The poet Niccolò da Correggio described Isabella d'Este as "the first lady of the world." The novelist Bandello called her "the most distinguished among women"; and Ariosto did not know which of the merits of "the noble and generous Isabella" to praise—her graceful beauty, her humility, herself, or her support of literature and art. Isabella possessed most of the qualities and charms that made an educated Renaissance woman one of the masterpieces of history. Without being a "scholar" or abandoning feminine charm, she enjoyed a broad and varied culture. She was not extremely beautiful; what men admired in her was her cheerfulness, vitality, quick intelligence, and perfect taste. She could ride all day and dance all night and still be a queen at every moment. She could govern Mantua with a skill and good sense that her husband lacked and, during her husband's incapacity and old age, administer his small country despite his errors, confused ideas, and syphilis. She corresponded on equal terms with the most prominent personalities of her time. Popes and dukes sought her friendship, and rulers came to her court. She attracted almost every artist to work for her, and inspired poets to sing for her. Bembo, Ariosto, and Bernardo Tasso dedicated works to her, although they knew that her resources were not very great. She collected books and works of art with the eye of a scholar and the discernment of a connoisseur. Wherever she went, she was the center of culture and elegance.

Isabella was one of the members of the Este family, the distinguished house that gave several dukes to Ferrara, several cardinals to the Church, and one duchess to Milan. She was born in 1474 and was one year older than her sister Beatrice. Their father was Ercole I, Duke of Ferrara, and their mother was Eleonora of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand I, King of Naples. Both sisters were of very high birth. While Beatrice was sent to Naples to learn vivacity and cheerfulness at the splendid court of her grandfather, Isabella was raised among scholars, poets, playwrights, musicians, and artists who for a time made Ferrara the most brilliant capital in Italy. At the age of six she was a prodigy of intelligence who astonished statesmen. Beltramino Cusatro wrote to Marquis Federico of Mantua in 1480: "Although I had heard much about her extraordinary intelligence, I never imagined that such a thing was possible." Federico thought she would be a good wife for his son Francesco, so he asked for her hand from her father. Ercole, who needed Mantua's support against Venice, agreed to the request, and the six-year-old Isabella found herself betrothed to a fourteen-year-old boy; Isabella remained in Ferrara for another ten years to learn embroidery and singing; she studied composing poetry in Italian and writing prose in Latin, learned to play the clavichord and lute, and became so agile in dancing that she seemed to have invisible wings. Her face was bright and cheerful, her black eyes sparkled, and her hair was like a skein of gold. At the age of sixteen she left her happy childhood home and became the Marchioness of Mantua with a dignified and proud character.

Gian Francesco was dark-faced, with thick hair, fond of hunting, and impetuous in war and love. In the first years of his rule he devoted himself seriously to government affairs and faithfully kept Mantegna and several scholars at his court. At Fornovo he fought more bravely than wisely and, through chivalry or prudence, returned most of the spoils he had taken from Charles VIII's tent to the fleeing king. He took advantage of a soldier's license in marriage and began his infidelity with his wife's first childbirth. Seven years after their marriage he allowed his mistress Theodora to appear in a tournament in Brescia, almost in royal dress, in which he himself participated; perhaps the fault of this act rested partly on Isabella herself, who had grown somewhat plump and become accustomed to long absences; for example, she made long journeys to Ferrara, Urbino, and Milan; but without doubt the Marquis in any case did not wish to live with one woman. Isabella endured these affairs with patience, paid no attention to them in public, remained a good wife to her husband, gave him excellent advice in political matters, and preserved his interests with her intelligence and charm. But in 1506—when her husband was leading the papal forces—she wrote him a reproachful letter with these words: "To inform me that Your Excellency has for some time become cold toward me, no interpreter is needed. Since this matter is most unpleasant; I will say no more..." Her intense interest in art, literature, and friendship was partly an effort to forget the painful emptiness of her married life.

In the rich and varied collection of the Renaissance, nothing is more pleasing than the intimate relations that bound Isabella to her sister Beatrice and her sister-in-law Elisabetta Gonzaga; and in Renaissance literature there are few passages as beautiful as the affectionate themes of the letters they exchanged. Elisabetta was dignified, delicate, and often ill; Isabella was cheerful, witty, and sharp-witted and had a greater attachment to literature and art than Elisabetta or Beatrice; but these moral differences were compensated by the sound character of the three friends, who complemented one another. Elisabetta liked to come to Mantua; and Isabella, more than concerned for her own health, thought about the well-being of her sister-in-law and tried to make her healthy. Nevertheless, there was a kind of self-love in Isabella that was absent in Elisabetta. Isabella was able to ask Cesare Borgia to return Michelangelo's Cupid, which Cesare had seized from Elisabetta after the conquest of Urbino. After the fall of Ludovico il Moro, her sister's husband, to whom she was very humble, Isabella went to Milan and danced at a ball given by Louis XII, the conqueror of Ludovico; perhaps this feminine courtesy was in any case intended to save Mantua from the hatred that Louis had developed because of her husband's unwise neutrality. Her intelligence accepted the "immorality" common in relations between states at that time, which still prevails today. But in other respects she was a good woman, and it was difficult to find a man in Italy who would not be happy to serve her. Bembo wrote to her: "He wishes to serve her and make her happy, as if she were the Supreme Pontiff."

She spoke Latin better than any other woman of her time, but never mastered it completely. When Aldus Manutius began printing the best editions of classical literature, Isabella was one of his most eager customers. She employed scholars to translate the works of Plutarch and Philostratus, and also hired a learned Jew to translate the Psalms of David from Hebrew so that she could learn their original meaning and grandeur. She also collected Christian classical works and read the books of the Church Fathers with enthusiasm. Perhaps she was more interested in collecting books than in studying them; she valued Plato, but in truth preferred the sweet heroic tales that entertained even people like Ariosto in her time and Tasso in the next generation. She loved jewels and delicate objects more than books and works of art; even in the last years of her life, the women of Italy and France looked to her as a mirror of fashion and queen of taste. She made part of her policy the stimulation of ambassadors and cardinals with her personal charm, elegant dress, manners, and refined thought; while in their hearts they admired her beauty, luxurious clothing, and grace, they thought they were praising her knowledge and wisdom. Her information, perhaps except for political knowledge, was not very profound. Like almost all her contemporaries, she believed in astrologers and arranged her schedule according to the conjunction of the stars. She amused herself with dwarfs and jesters and included them among her attendants—she had built six rooms and a chapel for them scaled to their size in the ducal palace. One of these "darlings" was so short that, according to a wit of the time, if two centimeters more of rain fell, he would drown. She was also fond of dogs and cats; she chose the most beautiful ones with special taste and buried them with great ceremony after their death, while living dogs and cats participated in the funeral with the ladies and gentlemen of the court.

Castello di San Giorgio, or the Ducal Palace—from which she governed her domain—was a complex of various buildings. These structures had been built at different times by different people, but their style was such that from the outside they appeared as a fortress but from the inside as a magnificent palace. Similar buildings had been created in Ferrara, Pavia, and Milan. Some of these structures, like the Palazzo del Capitano, belonged to the period of the Buonacolsi family's rule in the thirteenth century; the graceful palace of San Giorgio was built in the fourteenth century; the Camera degli Sposi is the work of Ludovico Gonzaga and Mantegna in the fifteenth century; many rooms were rebuilt in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; some of them, like the Sala degli Specchi (Hall of Mirrors), were redecorated in the time of Napoleon. All these rooms were luxuriously furnished and equipped; and all the ordinary rooms, reception halls, and administrative offices overlooked courtyards or gardens, or the winding river Mincio described in Virgil's poems, or the lakes located beside Mantua. Isabella changed her place of residence at different times in this large complex. In the last years of her life she preferred a four-room apartment called the Studiolo or the Paradiso; in these four rooms and another called the Grotta she placed her books, works of art, and musical instruments—which were also precious works of art.

After her interest in preserving the independence and prosperity of Mantua, and sometimes above her friendly relations, the main attachment of her life was collecting manuscripts, statues, paintings, porcelain, antique marbles, and small products of goldsmithing. For purchasing works of art and antiques she followed the principle of economy, and for efforts to discover works she sought help from friends and employed special agents from Milan to Rhodes. She bargained when buying, because the treasury of her small country was insufficient for her great ambitions. Her collection was small, but every item in it had excellent value and quality in its type. She owned statues by Michelangelo and paintings by Mantegna, Perugino, and Francia. Since she was not satisfied with these works, she persistently asked Leonardo da Vinci and Giovanni Bellini to paint for her, but the two refused on the grounds that she added more than the amount to the compliment, and undoubtedly also because she wanted to determine the details of every picture herself. In some cases, including when she wanted to pay 115 ducats (2875 dollars) for one of Jan van Eyck's works called The Passage of the Red Sea, she borrowed a large sum to satisfy her love of creating a masterpiece. She was not generous toward Mantegna, but when that great genius died, she persuaded her husband to invite Lorenzo Costa to Mantua with good pay. Costa decorated the favorite retreat of Gian Francesco Gonzaga, the palace of San Sebastiano, painted pictures of his family, and made a mediocre image of the Virgin for the church of Sant'Andrea.

In 1524 Giulio Pippi, known as Romano, the greatest pupil of Raphael, settled in Mantua and astonished the entire court with his skill in architecture and painting. Almost the entire Ducal Palace was decorated according to his designs and with his brush and that of his pupils—Francesco Primaticcio, Niccolò dell'Abbate, and Michelangelo Anselmi. Federico, Isabella's son, who had now come to power, like Romano, had developed an interest in pagan subjects and nude images in Rome; therefore he ordered that the walls and ceilings of several rooms of the palace be decorated with delightful images of Aurora, Apollo, the Judgment of Paris, the Rape of Helen, and other mythological themes. In 1525, Giulio began his most famous architectural work, the Palazzo del Te, near the city. A vast quadrangle of one-story buildings, with a simple design of stone blocks and Renaissance-style windows, encloses a space that was once a beautiful garden but was destroyed in the Second World War and is now deserted. The interior is astonishing: suites of rooms decorated with square columns, carved cornices, figured consoles, and coffered vaults; walls, ceilings, and skylights in which the stories of the Titans and Olympians, Cupid and Psyche, Venus and Adonis and Mars, and Zeus and Olympia are painted. The figures in these images are all naked and joyful, painted with the passionate and bold taste of the late Renaissance. Primaticcio, to complete these lavish masterpieces filled with heroic struggles, created with stucco a high relief of a group of Roman soldiers in motion that was in the style of Mantegna's Triumph of Caesar and almost with the skill of Phidias. When Primaticcio and dell'Abbate were summoned by Francis I to Fontainebleau, they transferred the decorative style of "rosy nudes," which Giulio Romano had brought to Mantua as a souvenir of his work with Raphael in Rome, to the royal palaces of France. The art of the pagan era cast its light from the fortress of Christianity upon the Christian world.

Isabella's last years were full of both joy and bitterness. She assisted her ailing husband in governing Mantua. Her policy saved Mantua from first becoming prey to Cesare Borgia, then falling into the trap of Louis XII, afterward being subjugated by Francis I, and finally falling into the hands of Charles V; when Gian Francesco or Federico approached the brink of political misfortune, Isabella cleverly deceived those greedy rivals one after another, tamed them with flattery, or enchanted them with her beauty. Federico, who succeeded his father in 1519, was a capable general and ruler, but he allowed his mistress to take his mother's place as ruler of the Mantuan court. Perhaps to escape this humiliation, Isabella went to Rome in 1525 to obtain a cardinal's position for her son Ercole. Clement VII paid no attention to her request; but the cardinals welcomed her, placed one of the halls of the Colonna Palace at her disposal, and kept her there long enough that she found herself imprisoned there during the Sack of Rome (1527). With her usual skill she extricated herself from that abyss, obtained the desired cardinalate for Ercole, and entered Mantua triumphantly.

In 1529, while still attractive at the age of fifty-five, she went to the Congress of Bologna, enchanted the emperor and the pope with her manners, helped the rulers of Urbino and Ferrara to preserve their lands from annexation to the Papal States, and urged Charles V to grant the title of Duke to Federico. In the same year Titian came to Mantua and painted a famous portrait of her; the fate of this portrait is unknown, but a copy made by Rubens shows a woman who still possesses power and love of life. Bembo, who saw her eight years later, was astonished by her vitality, quick mind, and wide interests. He called her "the wisest and happiest woman"; but her wisdom could not accept old age with good cheer. In 1539, at the age of sixty-four, she died and was buried with the previous rulers of Mantua in the church of San Francesco. Her son ordered a magnificent tomb to be built for her, and he himself joined her in the other world a year later. When the French sacked Mantua in 1797, the tombs of the marquises of Mantua were destroyed and the ashes of the bodies in them were mixed with the soil.