Out from the shadow of Isabella: The artistic patronage of Francesco II Gonzaga, Fourth Marquis of Mantua (1484-1519)

This dissertation studies the artistic patronage of Francesco II Gonzaga, Fourth Marquis of Mantua from 1484 to 1519. Although it was during his reign that the Gonzaga court rose to fame as a great cultural center of Renaissance Italy, Francesco's celebrated consort, Isabella d'Este (1474-1539), has received virtually full credit for this phenomenon. Previous art historical studies have focused on Isabella's creation and decoration of her studiolo and grotta, while constructing Francesco into a philistine and convenient foil for his refined wife. A central argument of this dissertation is that if we examine Francesco's cultural achievements in a comprehensive manner for the first time, it becomes clear that artistic patronage in Renaissance Mantua was, in fact, a shared enterprise between these two rulers.;Francesco commissioned numerous works of art, both sacred and secular, but almost none of them survive, and some were never finished. His most significant architectural projects included the construction and decoration of additions to two countryside palaces and the creation of a new, third villa, while in Mantua itself he built and decorated a city palace to house Andrea Mantegna's Triumphs of Caesar, commissioned Pietro Lombardo to create marble revetments for a chapel in the cathedral, and built the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, with its well-known altarpiece by Mantegna. These projects can all be reconstructed using the same kinds of archival materials used to document the artistic pursuits of his wife, namely: early descriptions, archeological evidence, inventories, and court correspondence.;Chapter One provides an overview of Francesco's political career, his court, and the mechanics of his patronage, while the second chapter shows how a specific episode--the Battle of Fornovo in 1495--became the defining moment of his marquisate and of his image as a patron. Chapters Three and Four reconstruct, respectively, Francesco's countryside and city palaces, examining how their painted cycles of triumphs, heraldic devices, horses, and city views served to underscore his expertise in arms, horsebreeding, and map collecting, while also articulating the social and political relationships he had with his subjects and his peers. Finally, Chapter Five examines Francesco's contributions in the broader context of the Gonzaga court by analyzing the relationship of his patronage to that of his wife in three case-studies. By reconstructing his most important projects, this study seeks to accomplish two things: first, to show how Francesco, under the rubric of princely magnificence, used architecture and decoration to fashion a particular princely image for himself, and second, to demonstrate that during his marquisate, contrary to popular belief, Isabella d'Este did not occupy the cultural stage in Mantua alone.