Mantegna

Mantegna, Andrea (1431-1506), a great Italian painter, was born in the neighbourhood of Padua, and adopted by Squarcione. At the age of seventeen he set up a studio on his own account, and studied classical models with great assiduity. He left Padua in 1459, leaving behind him many examples of his best work, and went to Verona, where he painted a Madonna in the church of St. Zeno. He afterwards lived chiefly at Mantua, where the marquis was his patron. Mantegna's masterpiece, The Triumph of Caesar, is at Mantua; he was knighted by Gonzaga on its completion. Besides being celebrated for his great mastery of perspective and foreshortening, this painter will be remembered as having introduced into northern Italy the art of engraving on copper.