Though in the service of princes, Mantegna knew his worth, and was wont to say that "Ludovico might be proud of having in him something that no other prince in Italy could boast of." He liked, too, to live in the grand style of his age. It appears that he spent habitually more money than he could afford, and after his death his sons had to sell the pictures in his studio for the payment of his creditors. Still more was he a child of his age--the age of the revival of classical learning--in his love for the antique. He spent much of his money in forming a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, and the forced sale of its chief ornament, a bust of Faustina, is said to have broken his heart. "He was the friend of students, eagerly absorbing the knowledge brought to light by antiquarian research; and thus independently of his high value as a painter, he embodies for us in art that sincere passion for the ancient world which was the dominating intellectual impulse of his age." With Mantegna, classical antiques were not merely the foibles of a collector, but the models of his art. He was "always of opinion," says Vasari, "that good antique statues were more perfect, and displayed more beauty in the different parts, than is exhibited by nature." Of some of his works what Vasari adds is no doubt true--that they recall the idea of stone rather than of living flesh. But Mantegna studied nature closely too; for, as Goethe said of his pictures, "the study of the antique gives form, and nature adds appropriate movement and the health of life." Mantegna died at Mantua and was buried in a chapel of the Church of Sant' Andrea. The expenses incurred by him in founding and decorating this family chapel had added seriously to his embarrassments. "Over his grave was placed a bronze bust, most noble in modelling and perfect in execution. The broad forehead, with its deeply cloven furrows, the stern and piercing eyes, the large lips compressed with nervous energy, the massive nose, the strength of jaw and chin, and the superb clusters of the hair escaping from a laurel-wreath upon the royal head, are such as realise for us our notion of a Roman in the days of the republic. Mantegna's own genius has inspired this masterpiece, which tradition assigns to the medallist Sperando Maglioli. Whoever wrought it must have felt the incubation of the mighty painter's spirit, and have striven to express in bronze the character of his uncompromising art" (Symonds: _The Renaissance in Italy_, iii. 203). A plaster cast from this bust hangs on one of the staircases in our Gallery. Mantegna's second son, Francesco, who in his father's later years had assisted in his studio, afterwards practised independently.