Andrea, an eminent Florentine painter, was born of poor parents in the vicinity of Mantua, in 1431. After a boyhood spent in tending flocks, he began the study of painting under Francesco Squarcione, a famous artist and teacher in Padua. So full of promise were his first attempts in the art, that his master received him into his own house, and adopted him as his son. At the age of seventeen Mantegna was intrusted in Padua with two important undertakings—the execution of an altar-piece for the church of Santa Sofia, and the painting of the chapel of San Christofano. While engaged in the latter work, he executed an altar-piece, which is now in the Brera at Milan. Mantegna sojourned for some time in Mantua, and there he secured the patronage of the Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga, for whom he painted some of his most beautiful pictures. One of these, "The Triumph of Caesar," is considered his masterpiece, and is now seen at Hampton Court. His fame had now reached the hearing of Pope Innocent VIII, and accordingly he was summoned from Mantua to assist in the adornment of the newly-finished building of the Belvedere at Rome. Attended by the highest recommendations from his patron the marquis, he was kindly received by the pope; and after he had decorated in a most finished and elaborate style a small chapel in the palace, and had executed a picture of Our Lady with the Child, he was dismissed with much favour and honourable rewards. Mantegna was scarcely less eminent for engraving than for painting; and on his return to Mantua he executed on copper his famous picture of the Triumph. One of his last paintings was a representation of Michael the Archangel, St Andrew, St Maurice, and St Longinus, all kneeling before the Virgin with the Child, and commending to her care the Marquis Gonzaga and his wife. This picture was carried off in 1797 by the French, and is now in the Louvre at Paris. By his labours Mantegna had now earned a considerable fortune, and could thus sustain with due dignity the rank of knighthood, which had formerly been conferred upon him by his patron. He built for himself a handsome house in Mantua, where he died in 1517. Mantegna is celebrated by his contemporary Ariosto as one of the most illustrious painters of that age. "This master," says Vasari in his Lives of the Painters, "taught a much improved method of executing the foreshortening of figures from below upwards, which was without doubt a remarkable and difficult invention." He was esteemed for his upright conduct, and his gentle disposition, no less than for his great genius. (Lanzi, Stor. Pittor.)