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

70 VINCENZO FOPPA
With the meagre information at present available, no solution of this difficult
problem relating to the date of the frescoes is possible ;
and equally futile
is it, in the absence of all documentary proof, to attempt to bring the different
frescoes into relation with any individual Lombard painter, since, with the
exception of Bembo, none of the artists to whom we have referred are
represented by any extant works.* But the probability remains that if Foppa
was the one in authority, he would have selected painters intimately associated
with himself to carry out the work. It is strange that we should have no
records referring to a work of such importance and commissioned by a donor
so distinguished as Pigello Portinari ; sooner or later we feel convinced that
more documents relating to its history will come to light, ^ and until that time
we must be content to look upon the Portinari Chapel as one of the many unsolved
problems of Italian
art.
Pigello Portinari, who for some years had held a high position at the
Court of the Sforza' and had been succeeded at the Medici Bank by his brother,
Azzareto, died in
the same year in which, according to Bugati, the Chapel of
St. Peter Martyr was completed. Two pathetic letters in the State Archives
at Milan from the wife and brother of Pigello to the Duke and his mother
Bianca Maria, announced his serious illness, and his death on October ii,
1468. He was buried on the same day in the chapel, according to the inscription
on his tombstone, preserved by Milanese writers ;*
the tomb being now no
longer in existence.
The family retained their rights in the chapel until 1654, when, in spite of
the provisions made by Pigello to preserve it to his heirs in perpetuity, it was
sold to the Marchese Modroni by Flaminia, widow of Ottavio Portinari.'
Contemporaneously with his work for Pigello Portinari, Foppa must also
have executed paintings in other places. In 1465 we have a brief notice of
payments made to him for frescoes of prophets and other figures in the great
cloister of the Certosa of Pavia (Doc. No. 10) ;
the account book containing
^
We have strong proof, however, from many laudatory references to these painters
in contemporary documents, that they must all have been masters of considerable
ability. The frescoes executed by Bembo and Vismara in the Church of S. Maria di
Caravaggio, for instance, were pronounced by those who valued them, so beautiful,
that they would have been worthy of a place in the Cathedral of Milan ; and certain
Venetians who saw them, were struck by the exceptional merit of the portraits of the
Duke and Duchess and of other personages represented there (Malaguzzi, Piti. Lomb.,
pp. 117, 118).
- An exhaustive search in the Archivio Notarile at Milan might lead to some
results in this direction.
^ Giulini, Vol. VI, p. 549, ed. 1857.
* Allegranza, De Sepidchris Christianis, p. 93.
* Caffi, Chiesa di S. Eiistorgio, 1841, p. 93.