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

I20
VINCENZO FOPPA
Foppa's altarpiece must, however, have been removed previously,' in accordance
with the decree issued by the Viceroy Eugene Beauharnais, which
provided that the best pictures belonging to religious bodies which had been
suppressed, were to be removed either to Milan or Venice. The Head of the
Milanese department—which had to pass judgment on the merits of the
pictures and have them removed to the suppressed monastery of the Passione,
from whence they eventually found their way into the Brera—was the wellknown
painter Andrea Appiani, a man of immense energy and full of
enthusiasm from the artist's point of view, though for the history of art he unfortunately
cared nothing ;
the records kept by him were consequently of the
most summary description. Between 1809 and 181 1 he had removed 773
pictures to Milan, principally from Lombardy and the Marches, and among
them was Foppa's altarpiece from S. M. delle Grazie, shorn, however, of its
predella.^ At that date it appears to have been registered as "in the manner
of Leonardo da Vinci "^
! In 1833 it was engraved by C. Borde for a volume
dealing with paintings in the Brera as by an unknown master, whose identity
Gironi, the writer of the text, was unable to determine, though he considered
that the painter might have been a pupil of Bramantino ;*
of the other panels
he made no mention. Eventually the work came to be ascribed to Zenale,
and under his name it hung for many years in the Brera. Morelli was the
first to attribute these panels definitely to Foppa,* and to prove conclusively
that they formed part of the altarpiece mentioned by the Anonimo and by
Pasta. At that time (about 1880) the St. Francis receiving the stigmata was
"^
not among the pictures constituting the altarpiece as we now see it in the
Brera, for as a picture independent of the ancona it had, as far back as
1848, been ceded to the parish church of Busto Garolfo, where it remained
until 1896, when it was discovered by Dr. Giulio Carotti and removed to the
Brera.' Professor Corrado Ricci, formerly Director of that gallery,^ following
his admirable system of grouping the works of each school in chronological
order, hung these panels in one of the large rooms in the Brera,
^ Its place in the church was taken by a picture by Cavagna (see Diz. della Prov.
Bergamasca, di G. M. Ponte, ed. 1819, p. 96).
^ See Catalogue of the Brera, ed. 1901, introduction, p. 9 and foil., and Corrado
Ricci, La Pinacoteca, etc. . . di Brera, p. 83, 1907.
* See Catalogo di Brera, di F. Malaguzzi Valeri, 1908, p. 183.
* Bisi and Gironi, Pinacoteca, etc. . . di Milano, Vol. Ill, ed. 1833.
^ The attribution to Foppa was suggested by Caffi in the Arch. Star. Lombardo,
1878, p. 102.
6 Lermolieff, Die Werke Italienischer Meister, p. 8, note.
' Gallerie Italiane, Vol. II, p. 25.
* Professor Ricci is now Head of all the museums and galleries in Italy with the
title of Director General of Fine Arts.