Of the painted cloths representing the Triumphs of Cæsar, Figure 221, (1484–1492), nine remain in debased condition at Hampton Court, England. Here the classicism of Mantegna finds its most legitimate expression. The designs are better seen in the engravings of his school and in the later woodcut copies by Andreini. [Illustration: FIG. 221. Mantegna. Triumph of Cæsar.—_Hampton Court, England._ ] Despite such great commissions, Mantegna lived in something near poverty. He could never resist a beautiful antique, and he was proud and difficult in his relations to exacting patrons. His style after his Roman visit of 1488 to 1490 loses something of its tension and develops breadth. Perhaps the most impressive picture of this time is the Madonna of Victory, Figure 222, in the Louvre, which was painted in 1495 to celebrate Gianfrancesco Gonzaga’s drawn battle with the French at Fornovo. Its severity is mollified by the graciousness of the evergreen bower in which the group is set and by the contrasting seriousness of St. Elizabeth and the kneeling donor. These figures forecast a mystical and tender quality in certain of the later Madonnas. In his last years Mantegna undertook an attractive but difficult task in decorating the study of the famous bluestocking, Isabella d’Este, wife of Gianfrancesco. With the pertinacity of a suffragette born out of due time, this great lady framed the most elaborate written programmes, upon the literal accomplishment of which she insisted. Her correspondence with such unfortunate protegés as Perugino and Lorenzo Costa is among the delightful eccentricities of Renaissance annals. The resultant decorations reflect the sophisticated and somewhat brittle grace of Isabella’s own personality. None are better than those of Mantegna which were done about the year 1500. His Parnassus, Figure 223, with its romantically picturesque gods and godesses, and its admirable round of dancing muses, is the best that Northern Italy can show in comparison with Botticelli’s mythologies, unless it be the companion piece, Minerva expelling the Vices, Figure 224, which is wonderful alike in energy, inventiveness and grotesque humor, anticipating in its mood similar refinements in Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” and Milton’s “Comus.” Mantegna in these works becomes the true precursor of that poetic pastoralism which in Giorgione soon dominates the Venetian scene. [Illustration: FIG. 222. Mantegna. Madonna of Victory.—_Louvre._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 223. Mantegna. Parnassus.—_Louvre._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 224. Mantegna. Minerva Expelling the Vices.—_Louvre._ ]