foresliortened in a manner that has been much extolled; and although the draperies are somewhat hard, and the work has a certain dryness of manner, the whole is nevertheless seen to be executed with much art and great care. For the same marquis, Andrea painted the Triumph of Cassar, in a hall of the palace of San Sebastiano, in Mantua. This is the best work ever executed by his hand.[1] Here are seen in most admirable arrangement the rich and beautiful triumphal car,[2] with the figure, who is vituperating the triumphant hero;[3] as also the kindred,[4] the perfumes, the incense-bearers, the booty, and treasures seized by the soldiers, the well-ordered phalanx, the elephants, the spoils of art, the victories, cities, and fortresses, exhibited in admirably counterfeited forms, on huge cars, the numerous trophies borne aloft on spears, an infinite variety of helmets, corslets, and arms of all kinds, with ornaments, vases, and rich vessels innumerable. Among the multitude of spectators, there is a woman who holds a child by the hand, the boy has got a thorn in his foot, and this he shows weeping to his mother, with much grace and in a very natural manner.[5]
This master, as I may have remarked elsewhere, has displayed much judgment and forethought in this work, for the plane on which the figures stand being higher than the point of sight, he therefore placed the feet of the foremost on the first line of the plane, causing the others to recede gradually.
- ↑ The paintings composing this work, are now, as our readers will remember, at Hampton Court; they were sold, as is said, under Cromwell, for £1000, but were afterwards recovered by the crown. —See Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting. See also Passavant and Waagen.
- ↑ Gethe quarrels with Vasari for commencing his description of this triumph at the wrong end, but admits that he speaks of it as one might who had the picture before his eyes.
- ↑ This is thought by certain commentators to be the figure bearing the banner with the motto, Veni, vidi, vici. And writers dispute as to whether he meant to reprove the arrogance, or flatter the vanity of Caesar. Vasari, it may be well to observe, does not himself indicate this figure as “colui che vitupera il trionfante.”
- ↑ Of the hero, that is to say. This part of the work is believed by some writers to be among those engraved by Mantegna himself (see Bartsch, Peintre Graveur, No. 11), but is not to be found in what we possess of the “triumph.”
- ↑ Certain critics affirm Vasari to be mistaken in the attitude of this child, whom they declare to be merely ‘‘desiring to be carried by his mother.”
