M antegna, A ndrea (1431–1506)

Abstract Italian painter. A prodigy, he set himself up as an independent painter at the age of 17. His first major work was the Life of St. James and St. Christopher in the Ovetari Chapel of the Church of the Eremitani in Padua, which was completed in 1459 (and largely destroyed in 1944). His altarpiece for St. Zeno in Verona is a sacra conversazione, Madonna and the Saints , which unifies the traditional triptych into a single space. His most important surviving religious works are Madonna and the Saints , the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian , Madonna della Vittoria , and smaller Madonnas. His panels on the Life of the Virgin at the ducal palace in Florence are meticulous miniatures. His love of strong perspective comes through in his Dead Christ (1480), where Christ is bewailed by Mary and another of the holy women from the bottom of the cross. The frescoes Mantegna painted in the Belvedere for Pope Innocent VIII have been lost. By the time of his death he was widely honored and he had profound influence on later artists such as Bellini and Durer.