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

ii6
VINCENZO FOPPA
addressed to all the principal cities within the jurisdiction of the Republic,^
subsequently to the reception of which at Brescia, no painter would have been
permitted to treat this forbidden subject on the walls or over the altar of a
church.^ Hence, whoever the painter, the work must perforce have been
executed between April and November, 1475. Averoldi was apparently
one of the first writers to ascribe it to Foppa,' and he was
followed in this by Carboni* and others. The painting was apparently
still in existence at the end of the eighteenth century, for Maccarinelli^
mentioned it as the altarpiece of the third chapel on the right in the Carmine;
1
See Ricci in the Emporium, XIII (1901), p. 131, for the missive addressed to the
City of Ravenna.
2 Numerous publications treating of the death of the B. Simonino appeared in 1475,
among them a poem published at Mantua and several letters on the subject written by
the above-named Mattia Tiberino, who also furnished the account of the tragedy which
was published at Augsburg in the same year. A poem entitled "Simonidos," by
Ubertino Puscolo (1431-88), a Brescian disciple of Guarino, was written about 1475, but
was not printed until 151 1. Sixtus IV by a Papal Bull of 1478, greatly modified the
prohibition contained in the Encyclical, and merely instructed the Bishop of Trent to see
that the cultus of the new martyr was not opposed to the Apostolic traditions of the
Church. In consequence of this the devotion to the B. Simonino again assumed considerable
proportions. Poems on the death of the child were published about 1480 by
Giorgio Summariva of Verona and c. 148 1 by Giovanni Calfurnio of Brescia; the Passio
B. Simonini was commemorated in the Missale Cun'cB RomauiB (Venice, 1487), and the
subject once more became very popular, and was treated in
paintings, sculptures, and
woodcuts. Frescoes were executed c. 1488 at Palazzuolo and Chiari, near Brescia (see
Calogiera, RaccoUa cV Opuscoli, T. 48, p. 467), at Bergamo (see Rass. cT Arte, 1902,
p. 72), at Albosaggio near Sondrio, and in many other places. The fresco still existing
at Albosaggio (Valtellina)—a much injured work in a place now used as a stable— is by
some feeble imitator of Foppa. In one compartment is represented the Madonna
adoring the Child who lies on her knee, and in the next the martyrdom of the child
Simonino, which may perhaps have been founded on the composition in the Carmine at
Brescia. This last was perhaps also the model for Schedel's engraving of the subject in
the Weltchronik (Nuremberg, 1493), in which the northern craftsman has treated the
martyrdom with much brutal elaboration of detail. The cultus and history of the Beato
Simonino is a decidedly interesting one in the annals of art, and the literature on the
subject is considerable (see, among numerous other publications, Zeitschrift des Ferdinandeums
fiir Tirol, etc., 1893, containing an article by Dr. Wellenhof on Hinterbach,
Bishop of Trent 1465-86, in which numerous MSS. are referred to at Vienna, Innsbruck,
Rome, etc., bearing on the history of the child-martyr; see also Acta Sanctorum,
24 Mart., pp. 493-500; Ghinzoni in Arch. Stor. Lomb., 1889; Glissenti in Ateneo di
Brescia, 1890, 1891, etc.).
^ Averoldi, Le scelte Pitture, etc., p. 23.
* Le Pitture, etc., p. 32.
''
Le
Glorie, etc., di Brescia, Bibl. Querin., f. 250.