d the
little capital with splendid creations of his art, now unfortunately
mostly destroyed. Mantegna's "Madonna della Vittoria," in the Louvre,
was painted to celebrate the deeds of Francesco Gonzaga in the battle of
Fornovo.

When he was ejected from Rome for making obscene pictures, Giulio Romano
went to live at Mantua, and the city still bears the traces of his
residence as well as of Mantegna's. The ducal palace, begun in 1302,
contains five hundred rooms in many of which are paintings by Romano.
The Palazzo Te is regarded by most authorities as Giulio's noblest
monument, displaying, as it does, his skill as an architect, painter and
sculptor. The Cathedral of San Pietro was restored from his designs and
in the Church of San Andrea, in a tomb adorned by his pupils, sleeps the
great Mantegna.

The history of music at the court of Mantua begins at least as early as
the fourteenth century. Vander Straeten[6] found some record of a
musician of the Gallo-Belgic school called Jean le Chartreux, or by the
Italians Giovanni di Namur. He was the author of a "Libellus Musicus,"
preserved in the British Museum. He was born at Namur, learned singing,
and according to Vander Straeten, studied the works of Boethius under
Vittorino da Feltre in Italy. He cites Marchetto of Padua as the first
to write in the chromatic manner since Boethius. Bertolotti in his
searching examination[7] of the records of Mantua found numerous names
of musicians employed at the court or permitted to exercise their
calling within the boundaries of the marquisate. He notes the
predominance of Flemish masters and the supremacy of their ideas in the
music of Italy. He attributes to Vittorino da Feltre the introduction of
the systematic study of music and credits him with publicly teaching the
art and inspiring in some measure the treatise of Jean le Chartreux.
From Bertolotti we learn that Maestro Rodolfo de Alemannia, an organist,
and German, living in Mantua, obtained in 1435 certain privileges in the
construction of organs for six years.

[Footnote 6: "La Musique aux Pays-Bas avant le XIX Siecle," Edmond
Vander Straeten. Brussels, 1867-1888.]

[Footnote 7: "Musici alia Corte dei Gonzaga in Mantova dal Secolo
XV al XVIII," per A. Bertolotti. Milan.]

From this time forward we find music and musicians in high favor at the
court of Mantua. Neither Vander Straeten nor Bertolotti succeeded in
obtaining from the archives of the city more