by Jon Lackman | 22 February 2007 | Books, Renaissance
David Landau reviews the first volume of Giovanni Agosti’s Su Mantegna in the Dec. 2006 Print Quarterly: “This is one of the greatest books I have ever read. For a long time we have felt the need for a reassessment of Mantegna … Agosti has done this and more: he has developed our understanding of the artist immensely by placing him in the context of his time and place, by exploring his relationships with people big and small, by combing archives and libraries in search of the slightest, but at times most illuminating, mention of the artist in Mantegna’s lifetime and after his death … Agosti has surveyed the impact Mantegna’s work had on his fellow artists, from the very great Correggio to the very small Giovanni Mazone … Much of the book is, in fact, devoted to the fortuna of the artist … to understanding how [his work] changed the course of Renaissance art. The ambition of Agosti’s enterprise is breathtaking, and most historians would have fallen short of the all-encompassing target that he set himself. He certainly does not, and the results are mouth-watering: reading the hundreds of footnotes in this fat book [551 pages], some a couple or more pages long, one is easily transported into the hidden recesses of the life, intrigues, travels, landscape and mores of Northern Italy … with an immediacy and fullness that I had never experienced before … Agosti writes like an angel: his Italian is quirky, deep, always meaningful and surprising, with each word and sentence laden with significance and subtlety. In short, a new Longhi.”
