Padua attracted artists not only from the Veneto but also from Tuscany, such as Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi and Donatello; Mantegna's early career was shaped by impressions of Florentine works.

The same year he was called, together with Nicolò Pizolo, to work with a large group of painters entrusted with the decoration of the Ovetari Chapel in the transept of the Sant'Agostino degli Eremitani.

It is probable, however, that before this time some of the pupils of Squarcione, including Mantegna, had already begun the series of frescoes in the chapel of S. Cristoforo, in the church of the Eremitani, which are today considered a masterpiece.

The age-old criticism stems from Mantegna's master teacher Francesco Squarcione of Padua, described in Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.

Pertaining to the Ovetari Chapel frescoes in the Church of Eremitani, Vasari writes that Squarcione stingingly remarked that "Andrea would have done much better with those figures if he had given them the tint of marble and not all those colours; they would have been nearer to perfection since they had no resemblance to life.

[7]Andrea seems to have been influenced by his old preceptor's strictures, although his later subjects, for example, those from the legend of St. Christopher, combine his sculptural style with a greater sense of naturalism and vivacity.

Trained as he had been in the study of marbles and the severity of the antique, Mantegna openly avowed that he considered ancient art superior to nature as being more eclectic in form.

One of his great aims was optical illusion, carried out by a mastery of perspective which, though not always mathematically correct, attained an astonishing effect for the times.

It was probably the first good example of Renaissance art in Verona, and inspired a similar painting by the Veronese artist Girolamo dai Libri.

In this period he began to collect some ancient Roman busts (which were given to Lorenzo de' Medici when the Florentine leader visited Mantua in 1483), painted some architectonic and decorative fragments, and finished the intense St. Sebastian now in the Louvre (box at top).

[10] Mantegna also met the famous Turkish hostage Jem and carefully studied Rome's ancient monuments, but his impression of the city was a disappointing one overall.

Returned to Mantua in 1490, he embraced again his more literary and bitter vision of antiquity, and entered in strong connection with the new Marchesa, the cultured and intelligent Isabella d'Este.

These superbly invented and designed compositions are gorgeous with the splendor of their subject matter, and with the classical learning and enthusiasm of one of the masters of the age.

Other works of this period include the Madonna of the Caves, the St. Sebastian and the famous Lamentation over the Dead Christ, probably painted for his personal funerary chapel.

It was painted in tempera about 1495, in commemoration of the Battle of Fornovo, whose questionable outcome Francesco Gonzaga was eager to show as an Italian League victory; the church which originally housed the picture was built from Mantegna's own design.

The Madonna is here depicted with various saints, the archangel Michael and St. Maurice holding her mantle, which is extended over the kneeling Francesco Gonzaga, amid a profusion of rich festooning and other accessories.

[10] After 1497, Mantegna was commissioned by Isabella d'Este to translate the mythological themes written by the court poet Paride Ceresara into paintings for her private apartment (studiolo) in the Palazzo Ducale.

These paintings were dispersed in the following years: one of them, the legend of the God Comus, was left unfinished by Mantegna and completed by his successor as court painter in Mantua, Lorenzo Costa.

The difficult situation of the aged master and connoisseur required the hard necessity of parting with a beloved antique bust of Faustina.

[10] Another artist from the workshop who made several plates is usually identified as Giovanni Antonio da Brescia (aka Zoan Andrea).

Mantegna became very expensive in his habits, fell at times into financial difficulties, and had to press his valid claims for payment upon the attention of the Marchese.

Mantegna's main legacy is considered the introduction of spatial illusionism, both in frescoes and in sacra conversazione paintings: his tradition of ceiling decoration was followed for almost three centuries.

Starting from the faint cupola of the Camera degli Sposi, Correggio built on the research of his master and collaborator into perspective constructions, eventually producing a masterwork like the dome of Cathedral of Parma.