Engraving from the beginning of the 19th century, note some traces of humidity, see photo And small tears Andrea Mantegna, born in Isola di Carturo, around 1431[N 2] and died on September 13, 1506 in Mantua, was an Italian engraver and painter of the Renaissance who broke definitively with the Gothic style in the middle of the 15th century, without departing from this attitude throughout his life. Mantegna, second son of a poor carpenter named Biagio, originally from Isola di Carturo, was born near Vicenza in the Republic of Venice. At the age of ten he entered as an apprentice and was adopted in 1442 by Francesco Squarcione, the head of an important workshop in Padua. Mantegna is his favorite disciple. Squarcione teaches him Latin and gives him to study fragments of Roman sculpture. He masters perspective. As the young man progressed in his studies, he came under the influence of Jacopo Bellini, father of the famous painters Giovanni and Gentile, and whose daughter Nicolosia married Mantegna in 1453. Andrea seems to have been influenced by the old precepts of his masters; in the later subjects, from the legend of Saint Christopher, it combines with its other qualities more naturalness and liveliness. Accustomed as he is to studying marble and the severity of the antique style, and openly acknowledging that he considers antique works superior to nature, he now strives for precision of line, dignity of idea and of the character, which makes it tend towards a certain rigidity, and towards an honest austerity rather than towards an amiable sensitivity of expression. His draperies feature powerful and narrow folds, being studied on draped patterns in paper and glued fabrics. Slender characters, all muscle and bone, impetuous action but restrained energy, a landscape of tawny colors, made of sand and where trailing pebbles, here is what elevates his style and gives him an athletic majesty. He never changed the manner he had adopted at Padua; its coloring, initially neutral and indecisive, strengthens and matures. There is in all his work more balance in colors than finesse in tonality. One of his main objectives is the optical illusion, based on the mastery of perspective; and he achieves it all by himself, thanks to laborious work, even if on this point he does not reach perfection and if he absolutely does not exceed what is then done best. But the illusion of reality remains amazing. Despite his success and the admiration of which he was the object, Mantegna left his native Padua early and never returned. We saw there the result of Squarcione's hostility. He spent the rest of his life in Verona, Mantua and Rome; it has not been established whether he also resided in Venice and Florence. In Verona, around 1459, he painted a large altarpiece for the church of San Zeno Maggiore, a Madonna and musical angels, with four saints on each side, and predella panels on the Life of Christ. In 1445, Mantegna enrolled in the brotherhood of painters of Padua as the son of Squarcione, but, at the age of 17, he left Squarcione. Later, he will affirm that his former master had used his work without paying him to his fair measure. Padua attracts artists from Veneto, but also from Tuscany and the early works of Mantegna are very marked by Florentine painters such as Paolo Ucello, Fra Filippo Lippi or Donatello. His first work, now lost, is an altarpiece, intended for the church of Santa Sofia (1448). The same year he was called with Niccolò Pizzolo and two Venetian painters, Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d'Alemagna, to work on the decoration of the frescoes of the Ovetari chapel in the apse of the Eremitani church. A series of fortuitous events resulted in Mantegna completing most of the work alone (which was almost completely destroyed in the bombings of Padua in 1944). The most spectacular part of the cycle depicted in the fresco is that in which we saw, in perspective from below, Saint James being led to execution. The sketch of this fresco has survived. It is the preliminary work to an older fresco which has come down to us and which we can compare to the final work. Despite the authentic appearance of this monument, it is not a copy of any known Roman structure. To dress his characters, Mantegna also adopts models of wet drapery from the Romans, which itself comes from a Greek invention, although the tense attitudes and interactions are inspired by Donatello. The diagram clearly shows that nude figures were employed in the design of works from the beginning of the Renaissance. In the preparatory sketch, however, the perspective is less elaborate and closer to a medium point of view. The perspective from below, allowing a larger and more effective implementation is also found in the Trivulzio altarpiece. Ansuino, who collaborates with Mantegna for the chapel of Ovetari, introduces his style (school of painting of Forlì).