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

96 VINCENZO FOPPA
evening of November 8 we learn,
from a letter written by Gadio to Simonetta,
that he had had the whole of the woodwork for the ancona shipped for conveyance
by water to Pavia ;^ and on the following day he went with it himself (being
too ill to ride), taking with him two of the masters who had been engaged
upon it. "It is a work," he observes, "which no one can touch but those
who are thoroughly competent, and of such I have only found three at
Milan." A fourth, we know from Gadio's letter of November 5, was at
Como, and did his share of the work there.
Simonetta of November 17- states that the matter was
A further letter to
then proceeding well, though at first, so the writer informs the secretary, he
had been confronted with many difficulties. The carvers employed by
Ferrini having no conception of the general scheme of the whole, Gadio
had been forced to summon Guiniforte Solario to assist him in reducing
things to order. He was now on the point of leaving Pavia, but the unfortunate
man was again in such a crippled state that
a litter to the barge which was to convey him to Milan.
Letters of February,
he had to be carried in
1474, from Gadio to Simonetta^ speak of the alterations
that were to be carried out in the chapel at Pavia, and notably those
connected with the window. The letter of February 6 refers especially to
this, to a plan proposed by Gadio for admitting more light into the chapel,
and to the fact that one of the masters of the ancona had been with him.
By June the ancona was set up ;
but it appeared that the Duke, through
Simonetta, had been expressing his displeasure at the slow progress of the
work. At this Gadio protested, and in a letter to the secretary^ declared
that, on the contrary, everything was being pushed forward rapidly : the
carvers, he stated, were busy at Milan upon the decorative work for the
balcony or gallery running round the chapel,^ and others were preparing
the two hundred "capsette" or caskets destined for the relics; while the
painted glass for the window (with a representation of the Resurrection,
which was also being made at Milan) was all but finished. At the same
time Gadio states that he had sent several painters to inspect the chapel and
the ancona in order to make designs for the pictorial adornment. He does
not specify the names of these painters, but from another of his letters of
June 8 (Doc. No. 21) we know that they were Vincenzo Foppa, Giacomo
1 Or rather to Binasco (letter, November 8), from whence, as we learn from the letter
of November 5, it was to be transported by carts to Pavia.
2 Beltr., p. 311.
^ Of February 3 and 6, 1474, Arch. di. St.
* Letter of June 4, 1474 : Magenta, II, No. 375.
^ " Qui ho due Magistri a laborare circha gli intaglii che vano ad ornare il balchone
dessa cappella " {ibid.).