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

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122 VINCENZO FOPPA
even to the decorative design upon the pilasters separating the different
scenes, which finds its counterpart in the framework of the altarpiece, proves
the intimate connection between them, and it is a most fortunate circumstance
that, instead of falling into the hands of some foreign collector, who would
have removed it from Italy, the predella should have come into the possession
of a distinguished Italian connoisseur. In course of time it may thus perhaps
be reunited to the altarpiece of which it forms so integral a part. The whole
composition is
a peculiarly complete example of what (borrowing an heraldic
term) we may venture to call a "canting" altarpiece, that is to say, without
any previous acquaintance with its history it would at once be self-evident
that it must have been painted for a church at Bergamo belonging to the
Franciscans. In the upper and lower tiers we have five of the great Franciscan
saints : Clara, Bonaventura, Louis of Toulouse, Bernardino of Siena,
and Anthony of Padua. One of them, S. Bernardino, lived for eleven years
at Bergamo,' and was most intimately connected with the Church of S. Maria
delle Grazie as its founder." Another, St. Louis of Toulouse, was the patron
saint of the Bishop, Ludovico Donato, who ruled the see from 1465 to 1484,
founded in the church the confraternity alluded to above, and consecrated
in 1474 another great church dedicated to one of the patrons of the city
St. Alexander.^ This last-named saint is represented in the most prominent
position on the right of the Madonna, and on her left is a second patron
of the city, St. Vincent, to whom the cathedral had originally been dedicated,
and some of whose relics reposed in S. Maria delle Grazie.^
Considered as a whole, none will deny that the picture is a singularly
characteristic work of Foppa, in spite of occasional lapses into unexpected
weakness of drawing. In the central panel we have a remarkably individual
example of the master's work in the splendid monumental figure of the
^ Mutio, op. ci't., p. 238, ed. 1621.
^ The church owed its origin to the religious enthusiasm aroused by the Lenten
sermons of S. Bernardino, and the site was given to him and to Brother Simone of
Milan by a native of Alzano. The first stone was laid by the saint in 1422 (Calvi, Ejff.,
II, 360, and others), and it was consecrated five years later. After the institution
of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in S. Maria delle Grazie, devotion
to this church was ever on the increase ; the chapels dedicated to the great Franciscan
saints, and especially that of the Immaculate Conception, were enriched with
frescoes, altarpieces, and sculptures, and the church soon became a very temple of
ait. It was situated in the Borgo S. Leonardo, outside the gate, in what is now the
Viale ;
after the suppression, the building and all its remaining contents passed into
the hands of the Congregazione di Carita, and in 1856 the church was razed to the
ground. An exhaustive account of the church is given by Finazzi, op. cit.
^ Ughelli, Italia Sacra, T. IV, p. 484 ;
Ronchetti, Finazzi, and others.
•*
B. Peregrinus, Kalendariuin, f. 2, February 22. Bibl. Civ., Bergamo.