nd, as a
frieze, went round the upper part of Lodovico's newly erected palace
of San Sebastian. Mantegna also painted a hall in the Castello di
Corte, called the Stanza di Mantegna, and there, among other subjects
of fable and of war, made the portraits of Lodovico and his wife. It
was partly the wish to see such works of Mantegna as still remained in
Mantua that took us thither; and it was chiefly this wish that carried
us, the morning after our arrival, to the Castello di Corte, or the
Ducal Palace. Our thirst for Mantegnas was destined to be in no degree
satisfied in this pile, but it was full of things to tempt us to
forget Mantegna, and to make us more and more interested in the
Gonzagas and their Mantua.

It is taken for granted that no human being ever yet gained an idea of
any building from the most artful description of it; but if the reader
cares to fancy a wide piazza, or open square, with a church upon the
left hand, immense, uninteresting edifices on the right, and an ugly
bishop's palace of Renaissance taste behind him, he may figure before
him as vastly and magnificently as he pleases the superb Gothic front
of the Castello di Corte. This facade is the only one in Italy that
reminds you of the most beautiful building in the world, the Ducal
Palace at Venice; and it does this merely by right of its short
pillars and deep Gothic arches in the ground story, and the great
breadth of wall that rises above them, unbroken by the second line of
columns which relieves and lightens this wall in the Venetian palace.
It stands at an extremity of the city, upon the edge of the broad
fresh-water lagoon, and is of such extent as to include within its
walls a whole court-city of theatre, church, stables, playground,
course for riding, and several streets. There is a far older edifice
adjoining the Castello di Corte, which Guido Bonacolsi began, and
which witnessed the bloody end of his line, when Louis Gonzaga
surprised and slew his last successor. But the palace itself is all
the work of the Gonzagas, and it remains the monument of their kingly
state and splendid pride.

It was the misfortune of the present writer to be recognized by the
_employe_ (formerly of Venice) who gives the permissions to travellers
to visit the palace, and to be addressed in the presence of the
_Custode_ by the dignified title to which his presence did so little
honor. This circumstance threw upon the Custode, a naturally tedious
and oppress