Sanguineti, Mantegna, e l'ekphrasis tra omaggio e dissacrazione

Several twentieth-century writers, including Pound, Eliot, Gadda, Pasolini, Arbasino, and many others were interested in the paintings of Andrea Mantegna. From the Avant-Garde of the 1910s to the New Avant-Garde of the 1960s, poets and novelists considered the Quattrocento painter as a paradigm of formal perfection, emotional restrain, and even moral rectitude. In 2006, Sanguineti published a collection of fifteen poems dedicated to Mantegna. On the one hand, the Genoese poet is the last example of the revival of the old master. On the other hand, Sanguineti’s ekphrastic verses deconstructed the stereotypes associated with the literary celebration of Mantegna.