[204] The “Madonna della Vittoria,” now in the Louvre Gallery, was painted to commemorate the achievements of Francesco Gonzaga in the battle of Fornovo.  That Francesco, General of the Venetian troops, should have claimed that action, the eternal disgrace of Italian soldiery, for a victory, is one of the strongest signs of the depth to which the sense of military honour had sunk in Italy.  But though the occasion of its painting was so mean, the impression made by this picture is too powerful to be described.  It is in every detail grandiose:  masculine energy being combined with incomparable grace, religious feeling with athletic dignity, and luxuriance of ornamentation with severe gravity of composition.  It is worth comparing this portrait of Francesco Gonzaga with his bronze medal, just as Piero della Francesco’s picture of Sigismondo Malatesta should be compared with Pisanello’s medallion.

[205] Vol.  II., Revival of Learning, p. 212.

[206] Nothing is known about Mantegna’s stay in Florence.  He went to meet the Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Bologna.  This Cardinal, a great amateur of music and connoisseur in relics of antiquity, came to Mantua in August, 1472, where the “Orfeo” of Messer Angelo Poliziano was produced for his amusement.

[207] That he could conceive a stern and tragic subject, with all the passion it required, is, however, proved not only by the frescoes at Orvieto, but also by the powerful oil-painting of the “Crucifixion” at Borgo San Sepolcro.

[208] This story has been used for verse in a way to heighten its romantic colouring.  Such as the lines are, I subjoin them for the sake of their attempt to emphasize and illustrate Renaissance feeling:—­

    “Vasari tells that Luca Signorelli,
    The morning star of Michael Angelo,
    Had but one son, a youth of seventeen summers,
    Who died.  That day the master at his easel
    Wielded the liberal brush wherewith he painted
    At Orvieto, on the Duomo’s walls,
    Stern forms of Death and Heaven and Hell and Judgment. 
    Then came they to him, cried:  ’Thy son is dead,
    Slain in a duel:  but the bloom of life
    Yet lingers round red lips and downy cheek.’ 
    Luca spoke not, but listened.  Next they bore
    His dead son to the silent painting-room,
    And left on tip toe son and sire alone. 
    Still Luca spoke and groaned not; but he raised
    The wonderful dead youth, and smoothed his hair,
    Washed his red wounds, and laid him on a bed,
    Naked and beautiful, where rosy curtains
    Shed a soft glimmer of uncertain splendour
    Life-like upon the marble limbs below. 
    Then Luca seized his palette:  hour by hour
    Silence was in the room; none durst approach: 
    Morn wore to noon, and noon to eve, when shyly
    A little maid peeped in and saw the painter
    Painting his dead son with unerring hand-stroke,
    Firm and dry-eyed before the lordly canvas.”