fighting with Florence, defeating Alfonso’s
siege of Piombino.
Malatesta had a reputation as an un-
scrupulous and violent tyrant, but he also
sought a brilliant legacy as an art patron.
He invited Leon Battista Alberti to design
the Temple of San Francesco, also known
as the Tempio Malatestiano, in Rimini.
This structure is known for Alberti’s use
of the Roman arch, the first Renaissance
building to adopt this ancient pagan mo-
tif. Malatesta himself was a skilled poet
who dedicated his verses to Isotta degli
Atti, his third wife and the woman who
may have inspired the death of Polissena
Sforza, who succumbed to a sudden illness
possibly brought on by poisoning.
After the Peace of Lodi, an alliance of
Italian forces joined against Malatesta and
attacked his territory. His skill as a mili-
tary leader made him a serious threat to
the pope and the princes of Italy; in order
to thwart his ambition Pope Pius II ac-
cused him of heresy and sodomy in 1460.
Pius sent his armies against Rimini and in
1462 Malatesta’s army was smashed near
the town of Senigallia. His conquered ter-
ritories lost, Malatesta had only the ances-
tral seat of Rimini remaining in his pos-
session. With Italy united against him, he
enlisted in the service of Venice and fought
against the Ottoman Turks in Greece in
- When he returned to Italy he plotted
a return to dominance through the mur-
der of Paul II, the successor of Pius. When
he arrived in Rome, intending to carry out
the deed himself, he lost courage and re-
turned to Rimini, where he died.
SEEALSO: Alberti, Leon Battista; Pius II
Mantegna, Andrea ...........................
(1434–1506)
Italian painter whose new techniques in
the composition of his pictures had a long-
lasting effect on later Renaissance painters.
The son of a woodworker, he was adopted
at a young age by Francesco Squarcione, a
painter and collector who ran an art stu-
dio in the city of Padua. Mantegna struck
out on his own at the age of seventeen,
and soon afterward won important com-
missions, to paint an altarpiece for the
Church of Santa Sophia and several large
frescoes in the Church of the Eremitani.
In these works Mantegna developed the
new technique of perspective, which gives
the illusion of three-dimensional subjects
on a two-dimensional surface.
Mantegna was strongly influenced by
the sculpture of Donatello, and the paint-
ings of Paolo Uccello and Andrea del Cast-
agno. He allied himself with the humanist
movement that was flourishing in Padua,
where university professors and scholars
fromalloverEuropearrivedtostudythe
works of ancient Greek and Roman au-
thors. He studied Roman ruins and litera-
ture, and consciously incorporated ele-
ments of the classical world into his works,
one of the first Renaissance painters to do
so.
In 1453 Mantegna married Nicolosia
Bellini, the daughter of Jacopo Bellini and
the sister of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini.
Six years later he was invited by Ludovico
Gonzaga, the marquess of Mantua, to be-
come a court painter. He was commis-
sioned to paint in the ducal palace of the
city, where he completed two important
works, the Wedding Chamber and the
Painted Chamber. In these works Mante-
gna created an entirely new environment,
covering all surfaces with striking, illusion-
istic pictures that place the viewer in an-
other world, well outside the walls of the
palace and the city. Anoculus, or circular
opening on the ceiling, gives way to a
brightly painted sky, surrounded by a se-Mantegna, Andrea