Page - 52 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter �5� Influenced by the general tenor of humanist studies of the early Renaissance, and by the convenient availability of the quite impressive Roman remains of nearby Verona, the study of classical Antiquity in a more narrowly antiquarian sense had been initiated in the second half of the fifteenth century by Manteg- na and his associates. The works that probably most strongly influenced later local artists were the frescoes in the famous Camera degli Sposi in the Castello di San Giorgio, and, even more, the series of paintings in tempera illustrating The Triumphs of Caesar, now at Hampton Court [Figs. 1.6–1.7]. The interest in the visual aspects of classical civilisation had been stimu- lated by the presence in Mantua—apart from that of a host of minor human- ists—first of Leon Battista Alberti, and later of Giulio Romano, who had ac- quired his astonishing expertise and understanding of Classical art under the aegis of Raphael himself [Fig. 1.18].20 Both these eminent architects, however, had been called to Mantua in the first place to satisfy the passion for building and for architectural and interior decoration of the Gonzaga; a passion of ex- traordinary proportions even for an Italian princely family of the Renaissance, and of which the immense bulk of the sprawling and eclectic Ducal Palace, 20 A description of the antiquarian tour undertaken around Lake Garda by Felice Felicia- no, Samuele da Tradate, and Mantegna is given in Andrea Mantegna 1992, p. 17; Isabel- la d’Este’s ‘insatiable desire for antiquities’ has been described in detail in Brown 1976; Brown also studied the collection of her brother in law, Sigismondo Cardinal Gonzaga (Brown 1991). More general information on Mantuan interest in the Antique in Signori- ni 1989 and Brown 1989. A detailed general study of Giulio Romano’s profound debt to Antiquity does not as yet exist; but see Burns 1989(a). Figure �.6–�.7 Andrea Mantegna, The Standard Bearers and The Bearers of Trophies, scenes from The Triumphs of Caesar, 1485–1505; Hampton Court, Royal Collection.