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

I30
VINCENZO FOPPA
a rock such as Foppa must often have seen in his Brescian home or in the
neighbouring Bergamesque valleys.'
The panel is inscribed ^"*^ '^ therefore
/^r^\rc\h\]rf:
one of three
known works bearing the ^PVo VJ\v«C" painter's surname, the other
two being at Berlin and M"TJ1 p^Pj-^
Versailles. Doubts have indeed
been cast upon the genuineness of this signature,
but a careful examination has proved that such doubts are unfounded
and that it is absolutely original. It is possible that in this composition
we may have a reminiscence of Pisanello's lost picture of St. Jerome
adoring the Crucified Saviour mentioned by Bartolomeo Facio,- and painted
for the humanist and poet Guarino. The latter, according to Venturi,
received the picture as a gift from Pisanello in 1438, and, in acknowledgment
composed a poem, in which he gives an interesting description of the
painting.' After eulogizing the painter's many virtues and talents he proceeds
to discuss the St. Jerome. "The noble gift of St. Jerome the beloved
which you send is a marvellous specimen of your virtue and your art ; his
splendid hoary beard ; his holy forehead, austerely frowning, rapt in contemplation
towards God ; he is present, yet we see that he is far away ; he is
here and yet not here ; the cave holds his body, his soul tastes the joys of
heaven. The image, though but painted, speaks so vividly that I scarce dare
to utter a sound, and I whisper low, lest my voice break in upon his contemplation
of God and the kingdom of heaven. ..." These words in
many particulars, apply admirably to Foppa's picture, and we may be sure
that if, as Mr. Hill has pointed out, Pisanello's composition was the source
whence Bono da Ferrara drew his inspiration for his picture of the same
subject in the National Gallery, much more was it so with Foppa, since his
work is a far more eloquent interpretation of Guarino's words than is Bono's
picture, in which, moreover, the saint is not adoring the Crucified, but is
merely seated in a landscape with his lion beside him.
Dr. Frizzoni's Madonna, like the St. Jerome, is also a representative
example in which every detail shows the hand of the master. In technique,
' Professor Ricci, in his recent volume on the drawings of Jacopo Bellini, ascribes
to that master a somewhat crude picture in the gallery at Verona, St. Jerome kneeling
before the Crucified Saviour in an arid landscape, which it is interesting to compare
with Foppa's version of the subject.
"^
De Viris Illustribus, ed. 1745, p. 48: " Hieronymus Christum Crucifixum
adorans."
^ The poem was first published by Cavattoni {Tre carmi latini, Verona, 1861), and
republished with corrections by Prof. Venturi (op. cit., p. 39). Mr. Hill {op. cit.)
devotes a chapter to the poem (pp. 1 13-18) and gives a paraphrase of it,
quotation in the text is taken.
from which the