Andrea Mantegna, Camera Picta (Camera degli Sposi)

[0:00] [music]

Dr. Beth Harris: [0:04] Let’s talk about this frescoed room by Andrea Mantegna.

Dr. David Drogin: [0:08] First, a little background information. Mantegna was active in northern Italy, first in Padua, also Ferrara, and around the Veneto in the middle of the 1400s. Then in 1460 he’s appointed by the Marquis of Mantua, Ludovico Gonzaga, to be the court artist of the court of Mantua. He moves there in the 1460s.

Dr. Harris: [0:29] It’s really important to recognize that what’s happening in Mantua is going to be really different than what’s happening in Florence.

Dr. Drogin: [0:35] In other kinds of cities — Mantua, at this time is a court. It’s ruled by a marquis, which is a step below a duke. The Gonzaga family, who’d been in control for quite a while, are the single dominant rulers of the city.

[0:46] It’s very different from a situation, as you pointed out, Florence or Venice, which are republics. And so Mantegna comes, and he begins working on this project, which is called the “Camera Picta,” or the “Camera delgi Sposi,” which…

Dr. Harris: [0:59] Camera just means “room.”

Dr. Drogin: [1:00] Room. “Camera picta” means “the painted room.” One thing to point out is that besides the door frame and the mantelpiece and some architectural features like these brackets at the bottom of the vaults, everything that we’re looking at is paint.

Dr. Harris: [1:16] It’s just amazing to me that it’s all paint.

Dr. Drogin: [1:19] It’s completely frescoed. All of the things that look like architectural decoration and ornaments and moldings, all of this is fresco.

Dr. Harris: [1:27] He made it look as though the walls are open.

Dr. Drogin: [1:31] We have the ceiling that’s decorated with these architectural and sculptural forms. Then it has an oculus, or this open hole at the center of the ceiling that we’ll take a look at, all painted, and painted very, very naturalistically and with careful attention to perspective, as if you are seeing three-dimensional objects from below or on the walls.

[1:51] That makes it illusionistic, as if it’s really there.

Dr. Harris: [1:54] We’re, what, about 40 or 50 years after the death of Masaccio. We’re really in the full swing of the early Renaissance, and humanism, and the rediscovery of classical antiquity.

Dr. Drogin: [2:05] That’s right, and Mantegna was a big part of that. Speaking of classical antiquity, and we can start in the ceiling, and what we see is this oculus. Then, surrounding it is this architectural and sculptural ornamentation that’s extremely classicizing in terms of the molding, and the details, and the ribbons, and the garlands, and the putti.

Dr. Harris: [2:24] The putti.

Dr. Drogin: [2:25] What they’re holding are fictive reliefs of the first eight ancient Roman emperors.

[2:31] And so also then in the subject matter, the ceiling is extremely classical. What’s important to point out is that, you know, we talk a lot about classical antiquity in the Renaissance and a revival of antiquity, but it’s important to remember that different types of cities drew from different types of classical antiquity.

[2:48] What we’re looking at here with these portraits of the emperors is an imperial classical antiquity, which is entirely appropriate for a court city like Mantua that’s ruled by a marquis, or any other city ruled by a duke.

[3:00] But this kind of imagery would have been completely inappropriate in a place like Florence. Private citizens in a republic would not have been allowed to decorate a room in their house with Roman emperors.

[3:10] [laughs]

Dr. Harris: [3:11] No. Florence looked back to the period of ancient Rome when it was a republic.

Dr. Drogin: [3:15] And so it’s important to remember that, for the people in the Renaissance, they were able to distinguish between different types of classical antiquity and pick what was most relevant to them.

[3:24] Below that, again, we see this open space, and on the walls are frescoes of the Marquis Ludovico and his everyday life, scenes in what’s supposedly Mantuan territory, scenes from his activities.

[3:36] Here, we see Ludovico meeting with his son, the cardinal, in the landscape. There are some putti that are standing up on top of the door holding an inscription. Then on this wall, we see Ludovico and his wife and his family and his favorite dog and the court little person, all sitting around while he receives a message from an advisor on the far left.

[3:59] Then coming up the stairs on the right are some visitors who are coming to greet him, and that might be related to the function of this room, which might have been a ceremonial greeting space.

[4:07] You see this extremely naturalistic, illusionistic painting that creates the fiction of architectural spaces. Look at how the curtain seems to be pulled forward and in front of the column. Sometimes it’s really hard to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not.

Dr. Harris: [4:21] Yeah, there’s a lot of fun, clearly, in playing with those boundaries and using perspective to fool the eye in a way.

Dr. Drogin: [4:28] Right, because you are looking slightly up at these figures. They’re standing on top of the fireplace. Notice that you do look up at them. You can see slightly up into the bottom of their tunics.

[4:38] You don’t see the top surfaces of the stairs or the floor that they’re standing on. And so Mantegna’s painting as if you’re seeing them elevated in that position.

[4:46] This is a part that’s intentionally fun and humorous. This is the oculus, this opening. “Oculus” means “eye” in Latin.

Dr. Harris: [4:52] It’s not a real opening.

Dr. Drogin: [4:53] Not a real opening, it’s just painted from this “di sotto in sù,” from below, radical perspective. We see everything very foreshortened. The balustrade, this railing that circles the oculus, the putti that are standing here, you see them very foreshortened from below.

[5:09] Here’s a peacock that we see from below. You see several servants, including an African one, standing around, and they’re looking down, and they’re laughing. If you look very carefully, you’ll notice that one of these women has her hand on this pole that’s supporting this pot with a plant in it.

[5:26] The suggestion I think is that she’s about to pull that pole away. That potted plant is going to fall right on your head. And so that’s the joke. You’re standing there looking up with your mouth hanging open. Suddenly you realize that there’s the joke, the illusion of these objects that are going to fall on you.

Dr. Harris: [5:43] In fact, there are other figures who look like they could drop things on us out of their hands or other parts of their body.

Dr. Drogin: [5:49] Out of their hands, or…right, because look at these putti not wearing diapers, with their little rear ends sticking out or the front of them facing us. And so there may be other things falling on you too.

[5:57] So on the one hand, this room gives us a serious subject matter of the marquis as a ruler of his domain with this serious, imperial, classicizing imagery of the ancient Roman emperors on the ceiling. But at the same time, in a marginal location above your head, what you might not see right away, there’s this puerile, humorous, joking quality that lightens the atmosphere a little bit.

[6:20] [music]