Mantegna and the Camera degli Sposi: the Painted Sky of the Gonzaga
The di sotto in su oculus, Ludovico Gonzaga's court, the Caesars and the myths of Orpheus and Arion: symbols and illusions of the Camera Picta in Mantua.
In the north-east tower of the Castello di San Giorgio in Mantua is a square room about eight metres per side that Andrea Mantegna painted between 1465 and 1474 for Marquis Ludovico III Gonzaga. Early sources called it the Camera picta, the painted chamber; today it is known as the Camera degli Sposi, the Bridal Chamber. It is one of the masterpieces of Renaissance painting and a manifesto of the humanist culture of the Gonzaga.
The court and the illusion
On the north and west walls Mantegna painted the Gonzaga family and their courtiers. In the Court scene the marquis sits beside his wife Barbara of Brandenburg, surrounded by children, dignitaries, a dwarf and a dog. On the Meeting wall Ludovico welcomes his son Francesco, recently made a cardinal, in an ideal landscape with a city of Roman architecture. The painted curtains seem to open onto the real room, which thus becomes an open pavilion. Among the figures of the Meeting scholars have also recognised Emperor Frederick III and King Christian I of Denmark, linked to the Gonzaga by kinship and alliance.
The oculus and the open sky
The most famous feature is the ceiling. At the centre of the vault Mantegna painted an oculus, a circular opening that seems to break through the ceiling to the blue sky. Around the balustrade lean court ladies, a young African woman, a peacock and winged putti in daring foreshortening from below; a tub of citrus plants is balanced on a pole, as if it might fall on the viewer at any moment. It is considered the first fully realised example of di sotto in su perspective in modern painting.
The illusion had a precise meaning in the culture of the time. The opening to the sky turned the room into a microcosm, in which the earthly court appeared in communication with the heavenly order. Yet the putti playing on the rim of the oculus and the amused gaze of the ladies also suggest an element of play, almost a challenge from the artist to the viewer's perception.
Emperors, heroes and ancient myths
The webs of the vault contain, in fictive relief medallions on a gold ground, portraits of the first eight Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Otho, held up by putti. The spandrels show, in monochrome, stories of Hercules, Orpheus and Arion, figures that humanist culture read as symbols of virtue, of the civilising power of music and of divine protection granted to the poet. Mantegna, a passionate antiquarian, knew these models through Roman coins, gems and reliefs.
Orpheus, who charmed wild beasts with his song and descended to the underworld, was for the Neoplatonists the emblem of the poet-theologian, initiator into the mysteries. Arion, saved by a dolphin after being thrown into the sea, represented the power of music to move nature. Placed in the marquis's private chamber, these myths linked the Gonzaga dynasty to an ancient and sacred wisdom.
Mantegna also hid his own face among the decorations of a painted pilaster, in a small self-portrait almost camouflaged among the ornaments. Damaged by the earthquake of 2012 and reopened after a long restoration, the Camera degli Sposi continues to show how Renaissance art could fuse political celebration, the science of perspective and ancient symbolism in a single space made to be lived in.