All else has perished. The lapse of time and the more cruel ravages of man have swept away whatever other paintings once adorned these walls, and the precious fragments of the Camera degli Sposi are absolutely the only works of Mantegna that are still to be seen in this his adopted city, where he spent well-nigh fifty years of his life. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. WORK AT MANTUA AND ROME: ENGRAVINGS, A.D. 1474-1490. The painting of the Camera degli Sposi gave the Marquis an opportunity for the bestowal of new favours on his chosen artist, “suus Andreas,” as Mantegna proudly terms himself on the tablet where he has recorded the completion of the work. Lodovico now granted him a piece of land near the Church of St. Sebastian, in Mantua, where Andrea built a house with the help of the architect Giovanni di Padova, and decorated it with frescoes which were the admiration of his contemporaries, but which perished in the sack of Mantua. Unfortunately his love of splendid undertakings led him into extravagance; he had already incurred heavy debts by purchasing a property at Buscoldo, and the expenses of his new house involved him in further difficulties. According to his usual habit he had recourse to the Marquis, and addressed him on the 13th of May, 1478, in a querulous letter, complaining that he is growing old, and has several sons and one daughter of a marriageable age, and yet that while others think he is basking in the sunshine of his Excellency’s favour he is in reality poorer than when he first came to Mantua. He ended by asking him to pay the eight hundred ducats required to satisfy his Buscoldo creditors, and to give him six hundred more in order to defray the cost of his new house. Lodovico was at that time in great difficulties himself, for he had been defeated by his enemies, and even compelled to pawn his jewels. None the less his reply was frank and generous. He fully recognised his obligations, and assured him that all his last pledges should be redeemed, but reminded him that of late fortune had been unfavourable to his arms, and that it was impossible for him to give what he did not possess. This letter, written in the same kindly spirit which we have often before had occasion to notice, was the last which Andrea ever received from his noble patron. Before another month had elapsed the good Marquis was dead, and had been succeeded by his son Federico. The young Gonzaga had known Mantegna from his boyhood, and proved as kind and liberal a friend as his father to the wayward artist. He not only paid his debts, but exempted the estates which he possessed both at Goïto and at Mantua from the land-tax. All his dealings with Andrea are marked by the same generous feeling. His letters express much concern on hearing of an attack of illness which had interrupted the painter’s work; and on another occasion, when one of Andrea’s sons was ill, he sent his own doctor from Venice to attend him.