Vincenzo Foppa of Brescia, founder of the Lombard school, his life ...

54 VINCENZO FOPPA
It is almost impossible to obtain any definite information relating to it, as
there is no one now at Milan who recollects the palace, once known as the
Medici Bank, before its final demolition. One painting", however, is said
to have been rescued from the general wreck by the late Professor Bertini, and
this is assumed, by many persons, to have been the composition which was
eventually acquired by Sir Richard Wallace.^
Numerous studies of the courtyard and of other parts of the building,
showing all that remained of the pictorial decoration, had been made by Professor
Bertini (about 1863?), and among them was a water-colour sketch
of this fresco on the parapet of the upper loggia, which eventually served
as the basis for Signor Caravati's version of the subject as seen in our illustration.
Professor Bertini's aim was doubtless to give a general idea of the
building and its scheme of decoration, rather than an exact copy of any special
portion (for photographic accuracy is hardly to be expected in the case of
a hasty sketch) ; it is therefore quite possible that the figure on the parapet
may be identical with the fresco at Hertford House, in spite of its obvious
divergency in matters of detail. If Professor Bertini and Professor Pogliaghi,
who afterwards made use of these sketches, depicted the figure as a youth,
which would tally better with the appearance of the Wallace fresco than with
the description given of it by Milanese writers (who speak of it as a "business
man . . . connected with the bank "), we can only assume that Professor
Bertini examined it more attentively than his predecessors and possibly also
under more favourable conditions, that is, after it had been cleaned and
removed from its place on the parapet. In any case, it seems certain that
what Bertini saw and made a drawing of, was the Wallace fresco.
De Pagave, it is true, speaks of it as in a bad state, whereas in the opinion of
Mrs. Herringham the Wallace fresco is remarkably well preserved ;
but this
would not necessarily point to two distinct works. The Hertford House
fresco, as we now see it, must certainly have undergone a process of cleaning
(if not of restoration to any appreciable extent), while De Pagave saw and described
it in the state to which it must have been reduced after having been
for over four centuries in the courtyard of the palace. We are therefore
inclined to think that the "one fresco existing" at the time of this writer,
which he described somewhat inaccurately, is identical with the composition at
Hertford House. Originally it must have formed part of a series^ which
decorated the front of the parapet in the courtyard, as in Filarete's day it had
According to Dr. Frizzoni, it was first in the collection of Vicomte Both de Tauzia,
'
and from thence passed to Sir Richard Wallace ; this is confirmed in the latest edition
of the Catalogue of the Hertford House Collection, p. 52.
"
Professor Caravati kindly informs us that he is also disposed to think that the
fresco of the Wallace Collection formed part of a series in the cortile.