The Elephants, from The Triumph of Julius Caesar
c. 1498
Medium
Engraving on paper
Dimensions
27.7 × 26.1 cm (10 15/16 × 10 5/16 in.)
Classification
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
56701
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This engraving depicts Julius Caesar entering Rome after his conquest of Gaul in 46 b.c., the greatest military victory of his career. Dante was not afraid of making his political opinions known in the Inferno; the three worst traitors in history—Julius Caesar’s assassins, Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot—dangle from the mouth of Lucifer in the final circle of hell. After his assassination, Caesar himself would join Orpheus in Dante’s limbo.
About the Artist
Andrea Mantegna · 1431–1506
Andrea Mantegna was born around 1431 near Padua, in the Venetian Republic, the son of a carpenter. At approximately age eleven he was taken into the workshop of the Paduan painter and antiquities collector Francesco Squarcione, who enrolled him as a guild member and immersed him in the study of Roman sculpture and classical Latin. Though Mantegna later claimed that Squarcione had exploited his lab...