Bellini/Mantegna

Giovanni Bellini, one of the great Italian poets in the words of Roberto Longhi, and Andrea Mantegna, he who sculpted [the image] alive and real in his painting in the sonnet by Ulisse degli Aleotti, were two giants in the history of Western art - extremely distant in character, certainly, yet connected by deep family ties. Nicolosia - Jacopo Bellini s daughter and thus half-sister to Giovanni - married Mantegna in 1453. This marriage engendered one of the most fascinating pictorial dialogues of the Quattrocento, as they both developed the motif of The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Now we see this pair of works exhibited side-by-side for the very first time, half a millennium after they were painted. This volume narrates an extraordinary event, down to the last detail, through a riveting analysis of the paintings themselves and of the relationship between the two artists.