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

Chap. V. CEILING OF THE AVEROLDI CHAPEL 117
by 1826 it had disappeared, as Brugnoli speaks only of a Crucifixion there,
which he does not, however, connect with the name of any artist.' We may
assume that the work mentioned by Brugnoli is identical with the painting
now existing above the altar, a most inferior production which strangely
enough is ascribed to Foppa, though it has certainly nothing to do with
him, nor indeed with any other artist of his day. The tradition which connected
the name of Foppa with the altar of S. Simonino was seemingly
revived about the middle of the last century in favour of this late and feeble
Crucifixion, and from that time forward local writers have persistently referred
to it
as a work by that master.^
Brescian writers, from Rossi downwards, have connected the name of
Foppa also with the frescoes on the ceiling of this chapel in the Church
of the Carmine, representing the four Evangelists and four Fathers of the
Church. The scheme of decoration followed in this ceiling is one which we
find constantly adopted in other examples in Brescian territory, in the
Val Camonica and elsewhere. Like the plan of decoration in the Portinari
Chapel and in S. Giacomo, the precedent once established became the model
for imitation, and was soon adopted as one of the most satisfactory methods
for the harmonious distribution of paintings in the sections of a vaulted
ceiling. It recurs with almost monotonous frequency in the works of Giovanni
Pietro da Cemmo, a painter who, if not actually a pupil of Foppa, was a
contemporary who felt his influence, and who early transplanted the motives
of Vincenzo's workshop at Pavia into his native Val Camonica.
The ceiling of the Carmine at Brescia, though much injured in parts,
is undoubtedly one of the best among the many examples of this class of
subject existing ;
yet the deviations from Foppa's own characteristic manner
are so great as to exclude all possibility of its being his work, and after a
close study of all the details of the painting we are forced to reject the
attribution of Brescian guide-books.
Three of the Evangelists, St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, are of
a type never met with in the works of Foppa, and his typical colouring and
treatment of drapery are not apparent in any part of these frescoes. The
only figures which remind us in some degree of Vincenzo are St. John the
Evangelist and St. Ambrose, and this remote connection may perhaps have
induced Brescian writers to ascribe the whole series to the master himself.
The grisaille putii beneath the Fathers of the Church have some affinity
with the pittti in the sculptures of the west door of the Carmine and in those
of the altar of this chapel, as well as with the pjitti above the throne in the
' Brugnoli, Guida cH Brescia, p. i86.
^ Fe, VIII, p. 28, and others.