Griffins and Two Cupids Crossing Halberds, plate five of Twelve Ornament Panels

Two artists in the circle of Andrea Mantegna produced a set of twelve ornamental columns (1937.100–03; 1937.105–06) which could be combined with other prints as framing devices. In true Renaissance form, the artists infused every inch of the image with a theatrical blend of mythology and antique ornament. Cupids gleefully urinate into one another’s vases in one of Giovanni Antonio’s columns, while half-armors and the spoils of war depicted throughout reinforce the Roman love of ancient history. The masked and hybrid creatures likely derive from grotteschi designs in Emperor Nero’s sunken Domus Aurea in Rome, which had been rediscovered and excavated in the decades before these prints were made.