For more than a century the “Triumphs” of Mantegna remained in the hall of the palace for which they had been intended, and were seen there both by Vasari and the historian Mario Equicola. On festive occasions they were sometimes moved to the Castello di Corte, and in Andrea’s lifetime they were used as stage decorations when the comedies of Plautus and Terence were performed at the Court of Mantua. Several separate episodes of the “Triumphs” were engraved by Mantegna himself, and the complete series became generally known by the publication of the large wood-cuts by Andrea Andreani at the close of the sixteenth century. In 1628, a short time before the sack of Mantua, the pictures themselves were sold to Charles I., with several other masterpieces of the Gonzaga collection. After that monarch’s death on the scaffold they were again sold by the Parliament, but Cromwell bought them for £1,000.[3] Charles II. placed them in the palace at Hampton Court. There this precious series still remains, irreparably injured by frequent removal and repainting, but still in beauty and completeness both of design and execution one of the most remarkable works of the Italian Renaissance. The exact date of the completion of the “Triumphs” is fixed by a fresh grant of land which Francesco bestowed upon Mantegna in February, 1492, with an express mention of the great work which he had at length brought to a happy termination. “If the Marquis had loved him before, he loved him still more now,” says Vasari, and in reality Andrea seemed to have attained the highest pitch of honour and good fortune. For once his affairs were prosperous. In 1492 he sold his small property at Padua, and two years later furnished his own beautiful house in the quarter of St. Sebastian. At the same time he came to a final settlement with his Buscoldo creditors and exchanged land with his old enemy Aliprandi. His son, Lodovico, obtained a good appointment as overseer and agent to the Marquis at Cavriana, while Francesco, who was the least satisfactory of the two and frequently caused Andrea anxiety, embraced the artist’s profession and became his father’s assistant. Lastly, his only daughter, Taddea, was married, on the 4th of July, 1499, with two hundred and sixty ducats as her dowry, to Viano Vianesi, whom he styles “uomo prudente” in his letters. Besides these children by marriage Andrea had one other son, Gian’ Andrea by name, born in his old age after the death of his wife Niccolosia, and whom in his will of 1504 he mentions as being still a child. His improved circumstances seem to have softened his temper, and the only complaint we find in his letters to the Marquis at this time is that the stones which he had prepared for building in his yard are stolen in broad daylight, one of the thieves whom his son had caught in the act of carrying away his spoil under his mantle being an officer of Francesco’s household.