The sculptor has caught the spirit which animated the great master, and has represented Mantegna, after the manner of an old Roman, wearing a laurel wreath on the thick clusters of hair that shade the deeply furrowed brows and massive features with which more than one portrait in his own frescoes has made us familiar. We seem to feel the fiery flashes of that piercing eye bent upon us, and to realise the iron strength and unbending force of the genius which no difficulty could dismay, and no labour exhaust. * * * * * Sperandio’s bust is almost the only thing in Mantua which still speaks of Andrea. The perishing frescoes are still to be seen in the deserted palace, and the walls of the house in which he once lived are standing; but in this city, where he painted for nearly fifty years, his name is forgotten, and while every child in the streets will talk to you of Giulio Romano and the Hall of the Giants, scarcely a creature in the place has ever heard Mantegna’s name. His Faustina is preserved among other antiques in the public museum, where visitors can see for themselves the classic outline of the features which he loved so well; but the custodian, who unlocks the hall, and has much to say of the many statues, passes by this one in silence, or wonders why it is we linger before this bust, unmindful of the tragic story which has invested the marble with so deep an interest. [Illustration: THE CRUCIFIXION. BY MANTEGNA. _In the Louvre, Paris._] The name of Mantegna, however, is not one that depends on local fame, and there can be no difference of opinion as to the important place which he holds in the history of the Renaissance. We have only to consider how great and widespread was the influence which his works exercised on contemporary art both in Italy and Germany. If we examine the different schools of North Italy we shall find that there is scarcely one which did not receive some new impulse from his powerful genius. His son Francesco followed in his father’s steps, and worked in the same lines without ever rising above the level of mediocrity. The few scholars and assistants he had in Mantua imitated his example, and whatever remnants of art were still to be found in Padua bore the stamp of Andrea’s earliest style. In Venice we recognise his vigour and precision of outline, and the classical tendency of his types, not only in the works of his brothers-in-law, the Bellini, but in those also of the rival Murano painter, Luigi Vivarini. Montagna and Buonconsiglio at Vicenza, Ercole Grandi and Cosimo Tura at Ferrara, alike formed their style upon his, while the best Veronese masters were all either his followers or imitators.