PRINCESS OF MANTUA

A prize winning biography of Barbara of Brandenburg who was nearly 50 years old when Andrea Mantegna painted her in 1470 at the side of her husband Ludovico of Gonzaga, surrounded by her many children in the court of Mantua. She complained to her cousin Maria that Mantegna had given her weary, jaundiced eyes and her face with no delicacy in it. "But Lady Julia, the dwarf, standing next to me, is staggeringly true to life". But who was the real Barbara of Brandenburg? Marie Ferranti takes us through the backdoor of everyday 15th century life into a world populated by some of the greatest men and artists of the age. In 1433, ten year old Barbara leaves her native Germany to marry the Prince of Mantua and when her husband leaves for war, she finds herself at the centre of one of the most refined courts in Europe. Seven years later when Ludovico returns victorious from his campaigns, she has to live with him through the most difficult trials - illnesses, mourning and the curse of his heredity - all Gonzaga women are born hunchbacked. Based on a series of letters between Barbara and her cousin Maria in which she recounts her daily life, dramas and jokes, this is fictional documentary biography at its most exquisite. 116 pages, paperback.