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It was long believed that Mantegna, in the end, forfeited the favour of his master by marrying Nicolosa Bellini, the sister of Gentile and Gian Bellini, whose father was the great rival of Squarcione; and farther, that Mantegna's style of painting had been considered Bellini.
At the age of seventeen he signed a picture with his name. Studying the casts and drawings collected by Squarcione for his Paduan school, the young Mantegna found congenial exercise for his peculiar gifts.
Michael Savonarola, writing his panegyric of Padua about 1440, expressly mentions Perspective as a branch of philosophy taught in the high school; and the influence of Francesco Squarcione, though exaggerated by Vasari, was not inconsiderable. This man, who began life as a tailor or embroiderer, was early interested in the fine arts.
Mediaeval Motives exhausted New Impulse toward Technical Perfection Naturalists in Painting Intermediate Achievement needed for the Great Age of Art Positive Spirit of the Fifteenth Century Masaccio The Modern Manner Paolo Uccello Perspective Realistic Painters The Model Piero della Francesca His Study of Form Resurrection at Borgo San Sepolcro Melozzo da Forli Squarcione at Padua Gentile da Fabriano Fra Angelico Benozzo Gozzoli His Decorative Style Lippo Lippi Frescoes at Prato and Spoleto Filippino Lippi Sandro Botticelli His Value for the Student of Renaissance Fancy His Feeling for Mythology Piero di Cosimo Domenico Ghirlandajo In what sense he sums up the Age Prosaic Spirit Florence hitherto supreme in Painting Extension of Art Activity throughout Italy Medicean Patronage.
The immediate cause of this almost sudden outbreak of the cult of the antique whatever natural forces were behind it was the visit of Squarcione to Greece, and Southern Italy, to collect specimens of the remains of ancient art.
I must refer my readers to Crowe and Cavalcaselle for an estimate of the influence exercised at Venice by Gentile de Fabriano, John Alamannus, and the school of Squarcione. Antonello da Messina brought his method of oil-painting into the city in 1470, and Gian Bellini learned something at Padua from Andrea Mantegna.
Squarcione himself is better known as a teacher than as an artist, the few of his remaining works being of no great importance. There is no example in the National Gallery, but of the work of his great pupil, Mantegna, we have as much, at any rate, as will serve to commemorate the master.
The ornamental accessories are singularly fine and careful in finish, and it would seem as though Signorelli had been inspired in this, not only by the great tryptych, but also by the followers of the Paduan Squarcione.
He was the son of a farmer. His early history, according to tradition, is very similar to that of Giotto. Just as Cimabue adopted Giotto, Squarcione, a painter who had travelled in Italy and Greece, and made a great collection of antiques, from which he taught in a famous school of painters, adopted Andrea Mantegna at the early age of ten years.
Muratori, vol. xxiv. 1181. For Ciriac of Ancona, see Vol. II., Revival of Learning, p. 113. The services rendered by Squarcione to art have been thoroughly discussed by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Painting in North Italy, vol. i. chap. 2. I cannot but think that they underrate the importance of his school.
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