In 1630, little more than a hundred years after Mantegna’s time, the city was besieged during three months by the Imperialists, and ultimately taken and sacked for three whole days. In 1797 it was again twice besieged and bombarded by the French and Austrians, and during the wars of the present century the ducal palace has been alternately occupied by French and German soldiers. This once sumptuous pile is now the dreariest and most desolate of palaces. The little life that still lingers in the old town clusters round the market-place on the Piazza delle Erbe, and grass grows on the deserted square which was once the centre of “Mantova la Gloriosa.” [Illustration: MEETING OF LODOVICO GONZAGA AND HIS SON, THE CARDINAL FRANCESCO. BY MANTEGNA. _In the Camera degli Sposi, at Mantua._] We pass through endless suites of spacious halls paved with marble and adorned with decaying frescoes and other remnants of faded splendour, till we reach the older part of the palace known in the days of the Gonzagas as the Castello di Corte. From its windows we look down on the sleepy waters of the vast lagoon, which seems to divide Mantua from the outer world, and over miles of swampy marshes, through which “smooth-sliding Mincius” winds its way. Here the Gonzagas hold their splendid court, here the banqueting-halls where they feasted, the ball-rooms—the scenes of their revels and masquerades—the suite of tiny apartments expressly built for the use of the dwarfs, the courtyards where the dogs were kept, are still shown. Here Mantegna painted, and here the walls of a room, now used to contain the archives, were entirely covered with frescoes by himself. This was the famous Camera degli Sposi, on which Andrea was engaged between 1470 and 1474, and where he represented Lodovico Gonzaga and his wife, Barbara of Brandenburg, surrounded by the different members of their family. All the frescoes have been much damaged, and those on two of the walls completely obliterated; but the groups which remain and the decorations of the ceiling are of the highest interest, and, if we except the Hampton Court Triumphs, form the most important series that we have from Mantegna’s hand.