03 — ARTWORK
Triumphs of Caesar (scene 9)
- MEDIUM
- Tempera on canvas, 267 x 278 cm
- TYPE
- Historical
PALETTE
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THIS REPRODUCTION
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CURRENT LOCATION · Royal Collection (Hampton Court)
- FILE
- 1179 × 1100 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
This scene shows Julius Caesar in the triumphal chariot. The triumphWith growing interest from the early 14th century in the history of ancient Rome came a fascination with the city's conquests, the wars by which they were won - and the ceremony which marked their success: the victor's triumph. The knowledge that the privilege of being commemorated by one of these enormous and costly processions of warriors, loot and prisoners was given sparingly, only to the sole commander of a major victory over a foreign army of whom at least 5000 were slain, added to the glamour of the triumph. Its centrepiece was the chariot of the victor himself. Dante gave one to Beatrice in Purgatorio XXIX: 'Rome upon Africanus ne'er conferred / Nor on Augustus's self, a car so brave'. But it was tentatively with the relief carvings on the Triumphal Arch (1452-66) at Castelnuovo in Naples commemorating Alfonso the Magnanimous, and finally with Mantegna's superb Triumph of Caesar cartoons (Hampton Court), that the visual reconstruction of a Roman triumph became complete. Meanwhile, in an age which did not like the idea of large numbers of victory-flushed soldiers parading through its streets, the military triumph became sublimated, as it were, into a number of less controversial forms. This was largely under the influence of Petrarch's 'Trionfi' - poems describing the processions commemorating the triumphs of love, chastity, death; fame, time and eternity. Disseminated soon after his death, they soon appeared in illuminated manuscripts, and the triumph scene became a popular one for woodcuts, decorated marriage chests and other paintings, most beautifully of all on the backs of Piero della Francesca's portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza. Other 'triumphs' were invented: of the seasons, of virtues and of the arts. Nor was the theme allowed to be simply a profane one. Just before his death Savonarola published his 'Triumph of the Cross', in which the reader was invited to imagine 'a four-wheeled chariot on which is seated Christ as Conqueror.' Before it go the apostles, patriarchs and prophets, beside it the army of martyrs, behind it, after 'a countless number of virgins, of both sexes', come the prisoners: 'the serried ranks of the enemies of the Church of Christ.' This aspect of the theme was magnificently realized in Titian's great woodcut 'The Triumph of the Faith'. of the emperor, who sits like a god in his triumphal chariot, is heralded and lauded - as shown by the presence of putti, which appear only in this painting, the laurel wreath with which Caesar is about to be crowned, the sculptures of conquered warriors on the triumphal archIn the architecture of ancient Rome, a large and usually free-standing ceremonial archway built to celebrate a military victory. Often decorated with architectural features and relief sculptures, they usually consisted of a large archway flanked by two smaller ones. The triumphal archway was revived during the Renaissance, though usually as a feature of a building rather than as an independent structure. In Renaissance painting they appear as allusion to classical antiquity., and the images of the gods.
OTHER WORKS BY ANDREA MANTEGNA
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-rf7e3a1d502e10a,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Triumphs of Caesar (scene 9) by MANTEGNA, Andrea},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/mantegna-andrea-r671bf8b11d2a72/triumphs-of-caesar-scene-9-rf7e3a1d502e10a},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.