DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61022#0026
EARLY YEARS
a poignancy and a depth of passion which might have entitled
him to rank with Federigo’s favourites.
Federigo died in 1482. His son Guidubaldo did not emerge
from tutelage until 1489 when, only fourteen years of age, he
gained his independence by the favour of the Pope, with whom
he served against the French. Three years later he married
Elizabeth Gonzaga, the daughter of Frederick of Mantua, and from
this year dates the establishment of a court which outshone in
splendour the ruder court of Federigo, if it has not, indeed,
caused the earlier court to shine with light reflected from itself.
Giovanni Santi may have received more patronage from Guidu-
baldo than from his father. But the favour was necessarily short-
lived. A letter from Elisabetta to her brother, the Marquis of
Mantua, on 12th October 1494, speaks of a portrait commission
which Giovanni was to execute in Mantua, but some two months
before this date she had announced in a letter to her sister,
Isabella of Este, that Giovanni the painter was dead.1
The kindly terms in which Elisabetta speaks of Giovanni
prove that he was honoured in his humble place. He had not,
however, relied upon his painting alone to gain the favour of
the young duke. It must have been shortly before his death that
he approached Guidubaldo with a modest letter recommending
himself to his good offices, and presenting a long poem on the
glorious theme of Federigo and his exploits. While Federigo’s
own courtiers had celebrated their patron in magnificent and
cultured language, dedicating to him their graceful Latin poems,
or their rhetorical Latin orations, Giovanni entered the lists
with a rhyming chronicle in the native Italian tongue. For this
solecism he apologises, of course, laying the blame upon the mis-
fortunes of his family and upon the cruel tyranny of art, which,
lying upon his shoulders, like the world on Atlas, rendered the
burdens of family life doubly hard to bear. But if he cannot
speak the tongue of antiquity, he is familiar with its images, as
1 Campori, Notizie. 1870. pp. 4 and 5.
4
a poignancy and a depth of passion which might have entitled
him to rank with Federigo’s favourites.
Federigo died in 1482. His son Guidubaldo did not emerge
from tutelage until 1489 when, only fourteen years of age, he
gained his independence by the favour of the Pope, with whom
he served against the French. Three years later he married
Elizabeth Gonzaga, the daughter of Frederick of Mantua, and from
this year dates the establishment of a court which outshone in
splendour the ruder court of Federigo, if it has not, indeed,
caused the earlier court to shine with light reflected from itself.
Giovanni Santi may have received more patronage from Guidu-
baldo than from his father. But the favour was necessarily short-
lived. A letter from Elisabetta to her brother, the Marquis of
Mantua, on 12th October 1494, speaks of a portrait commission
which Giovanni was to execute in Mantua, but some two months
before this date she had announced in a letter to her sister,
Isabella of Este, that Giovanni the painter was dead.1
The kindly terms in which Elisabetta speaks of Giovanni
prove that he was honoured in his humble place. He had not,
however, relied upon his painting alone to gain the favour of
the young duke. It must have been shortly before his death that
he approached Guidubaldo with a modest letter recommending
himself to his good offices, and presenting a long poem on the
glorious theme of Federigo and his exploits. While Federigo’s
own courtiers had celebrated their patron in magnificent and
cultured language, dedicating to him their graceful Latin poems,
or their rhetorical Latin orations, Giovanni entered the lists
with a rhyming chronicle in the native Italian tongue. For this
solecism he apologises, of course, laying the blame upon the mis-
fortunes of his family and upon the cruel tyranny of art, which,
lying upon his shoulders, like the world on Atlas, rendered the
burdens of family life doubly hard to bear. But if he cannot
speak the tongue of antiquity, he is familiar with its images, as
1 Campori, Notizie. 1870. pp. 4 and 5.
4