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

Chap. III. THE PORTINARI CHAPEL 59
hiin with song and dance, holding ropes of flowers in their hands.' The
charm of the building is indescribable ; unity of effect is attained by a
felicitous combination of architecture, painting, and the most delicate plastic
modelling, every detail being so harmoniously blended that it is at times
difficult to distinguish between painted ornament and plastic relief. The
severe and simple character of the Florentine buildings is here replaced by a
wealth of ornament and decorative motives which is almost overpowering.
The whole is dominated by a strain of exuberant gaiety, of pure delight in
the possibilities of form, colour, and pictorial effect, which, in spite of the
many changes which the building has undergone and the injuries it has
sustained, will ever cause it to rank as one of the gems of Italian art in the
fifteenth century, and as an important link between the tendencies of local
Lombard art and those of the early Renaissance, of which it heralds the
approach. Many writers have definitely stated that Michelozzo built the
chapel ; " but though the connection with his Cappella del Noviziato in S. Croce
and with other Florentine buildings erected by him is striking,' and although
we find a great number of decorative and architectural features in the
Portinari Chapel which also occur in the works of Michelozzo, no records
have yet been discovered to prove his co-operation here, nor have we the
slightest clue as to who designed the chapel and planned its scheme of ornament.
In the decorative motives used with such profusion and with admirable
taste and effect throughout the building, we certainly find reminiscences of
similar compositions in Florentine works. The frieze of cherubs' heads, for
instance,^ is directly imitated from the beautiful frieze in the vestibule of the
^
Oett., op. cit., p. 476.
- De Pagave, for instance {op. cit., p. 330), states that the chapel was designed and
built by Michelozzo. There is not, as far as we know, the slightest authority for this
statement, which has, however, been repeated as a fact by subsequent annotators of
Vasari.
^ M. Marcel Reymond {Sculpture Florentine, p. 165), among many other writers,
draws attention to this, though he admits that documents do not permit the certain
attribution to Michelozzo. It is curious that the same writer, when speaking of the
Medici Bank, shoukl say :
" We know that Michelozzo went to Milan in 1457 to rebuild
the p.ilace given by Francesco Sforza to Cosimo de' Medici" {ibid.). But do we know
it? At present there is no documentary evidence to prove the personal presence of
Michelozzo at Milan in these years,
for Vasari's statement that Michelozzo painted the
portrait of Cosimo in the Medici Bank (Vol. II, p. 345, ed. 1568) is unworthy of
credence ;
we saw (chap. 11, p. 42) that all the biographer's information respecting this
building was derived from Filarete, yet the latter never alludes to such a portrait.
* The same motive is met with in the rose window of the Carmine at Pavia, the
date of which is not known. The terra-cotta work throughout this building is, however,
closely connected with the work in the cloisters of S. Lanfranco, which is known
to have been executed in 1467.