DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42861#0203
DOOR IN THE GROTTA
165
sculptor and servant, M. Zoan Cristoforo Romano,”
desiring the Venetian engineer, Antonio Riccio, to
send him certain Carrara marbles, with which she
wished him to adorn her studio.1 From this letter it
is plain that Cristoforo was already in her service, and
that he was about to design the beautiful doorway
which may still be seen in her apartment of the
Paradiso, on the upper floor of the Corte Vecchia.
Since these rooms were only built in 1520, when the
Marchesa gave up her old apartments in the Castello,
there can be little doubt that this white marble
portal, richly encrusted with porphyry and other
coloured stones, and adorned with classical bas-reliefs,
was originally destined for the Studio of the Grotta.
The subjects of these medallions agree exactly with
Mantegna’s pictures and with the general scheme of
decoration. Minerva appears in one tondo, armed
with spear and olive; in another, Apollo hangs up
his lyre on the trunk of a tree; and on a third we
see the Muse of Poetry and Eloquence represented
with a book and cornucopia; while the whole is
framed in a frieze of Greek vases, griffins, and doves,
and carved with exquisite delicacy.
We recognise this gifted sculptor’s hand in two
sepulchral monuments, bearing the date of 1498, in
the Gonzagas’ favourite sanctuary of S. Maria della
Grazie, near Mantua, and Dr. Luzio has lately
discovered two sketches of the Marquis Francesco’s
device of the crogiolo or crucible, which he designed
in the same year. We learn from a letter, which
Isabella sent to the sculptor in Rome in March 1506,
that soon after his arrival at Mantua he had carved
her bust in marble for her faithful servant, Ales-
1 Luzio e Renier, Arch. St. Lomb., xvii. 51.
165
sculptor and servant, M. Zoan Cristoforo Romano,”
desiring the Venetian engineer, Antonio Riccio, to
send him certain Carrara marbles, with which she
wished him to adorn her studio.1 From this letter it
is plain that Cristoforo was already in her service, and
that he was about to design the beautiful doorway
which may still be seen in her apartment of the
Paradiso, on the upper floor of the Corte Vecchia.
Since these rooms were only built in 1520, when the
Marchesa gave up her old apartments in the Castello,
there can be little doubt that this white marble
portal, richly encrusted with porphyry and other
coloured stones, and adorned with classical bas-reliefs,
was originally destined for the Studio of the Grotta.
The subjects of these medallions agree exactly with
Mantegna’s pictures and with the general scheme of
decoration. Minerva appears in one tondo, armed
with spear and olive; in another, Apollo hangs up
his lyre on the trunk of a tree; and on a third we
see the Muse of Poetry and Eloquence represented
with a book and cornucopia; while the whole is
framed in a frieze of Greek vases, griffins, and doves,
and carved with exquisite delicacy.
We recognise this gifted sculptor’s hand in two
sepulchral monuments, bearing the date of 1498, in
the Gonzagas’ favourite sanctuary of S. Maria della
Grazie, near Mantua, and Dr. Luzio has lately
discovered two sketches of the Marquis Francesco’s
device of the crogiolo or crucible, which he designed
in the same year. We learn from a letter, which
Isabella sent to the sculptor in Rome in March 1506,
that soon after his arrival at Mantua he had carved
her bust in marble for her faithful servant, Ales-
1 Luzio e Renier, Arch. St. Lomb., xvii. 51.