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

Chap. III. FOPPA TAKES A HOUSE AT PAVIA IN 1470 77
place, as Vincenzo's letter is no longer in existence ; but an entry recording
the fact is in the Archivio del Capitolo at Pisa, and was discovered by Signor
Supino,* who kindly informs us that no further notice relating to our painter
is to be found in the Pisan Archives. In the winter of this year 1469 we
find him witnessing a contract for the division of certain lands between a
priest Giovanni Andrea Cattaneo da Brignano and his brother Giorgio (Doc.
No. 16). The transaction took place on February 6 in the cloisters of the
Church of S. Maria Gualtieri at Pavia, and is of great interest as showing
Foppa's connection both with that church and with the contracting parties
at this early date, for it was for the Church of S. Maria that he painted
one of his most important pictures, a great altarpiece which we shall find
minutely described in a document of 1499, his collaborator in the work being
Giovanni Siro, the son of this Giorgio Cattaneo just mentioned. We may
infer that in 1469 Foppa was still living in the house at S. Martino in Pietra
Lata, which was almost opposite to S. Maria Gualtieri, where he had been
summoned to act as a witness. In the summer of 1470 Vincenzo was still
at Pavia, for on the 15th of June he took another house up to February i,
1474, this time in the parish of S. Gregorio, near Porta Marenga (Doc.
No. 18). He must have been in flourishing circumstances, for he was himself
the owner of some house property at Pavia as we know, and though there
is no mention of a workshop in the new lease, it is evident, from the wording
of the document, that this house was a larger and more important building
than his former abode in the quarter of Porta Laudense, though he paid less
rent for it (thirteen instead of eighteen florins per annum) ; it was sublet to
him by a certain Gregorio di S. Gregorio, who had taken it himself for a term
of four years, as recently as February of this year.
The painter's new house was situated in what is now Corso Cavour, not
far from the statue known as " Muto dall' accia al collo,'"- a quarter less
central and less frequented than that of S. Martino, which was, as we saw,
the very centre of the art life of Pavia. This, and the fact that there was
no workshop, would account for the lower rent. That Foppa should have
given up his workshop in Strada Nuova, and taken a house removed from the
centre of activity as far as art was concerned, is perhaps an indication that
the house was for his family, and that he himself had decided to leave Pavia
for a time and seek work in other cities, availing himself at last of the
Duke's safe-conduct, which had been granted to him in 1468 ; as we have
'
See // Campo Santo di Pisa, p. 28.
The name bestowed upon this mutilated Roman statue by the people of Pavia,
"^
who mistook the folds of the toga for a skein hung loosely round the neck (see
Moiraghi, in Appendice al giornale II Ticino, 1892, and C. Dell' Acqua, Guida . . di
Pavia, p. 33).