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

138 VINCENZO FOPPA
Brescia are referred to between 147 1 and 1473,^ but after that date we find no
further mention of him, and we may conclude that he was either dead or had
left Brescia.
The other brother Bartolomeo seems, like
at Pavia, which accounts for the absence of all
Foppa, to have made his home
allusion to him in the Brescian
Archives. The mention of his surname in this petition shows that he cannot
be identified with Bartolomeo Prato da Brescia, the noted painter of bards
to whom we alluded in chapter iii, and who in Milanese documents is called
de Prato or da Prato ;' the name Prato was a very common one at Brescia,
and is frequently met with in the Libri d' Estimo throughout the fifteenth
century, and to some branch of this numerous family, Bartolomeo Prato
must have belonged.
It is equally certain that Bartolomeo Caylina cannot be identified with
Bertolino della Canonica' the Pavian, as some writers have suggested.*
Since the document in the Milanese Archives established the identity of these
members of the Caylina family and their connection with Vincenzo Foppa,
a great number of important records relating to them have come to light in
the Archives of Pavia. Bartolomeo, we now know, was also a painter, and
we may reasonably conclude that he was often associated with Foppa
artistically throughout the years when they were living at Pavia. In an
extremely interesting document (No. 50), to be mentioned later, we have
definite proof of this. We cannot tell whether Bartolomeo Caylina accompanied
his brother-in-law to Pavia when he first settled there, but we know
from a record of November 15, 1465,^ that he was at that date living in the
city. In this, the first Pavian document which mentions him, he is called
"Bartolomeo de Brissia pictore, filio quondam Petri," and he appears as
witness to a payment of rent in the workshop of the Caracci brothers in the
parish of S. Vito ; this was near S. Invenzio, the quarter of Pavia where
Caylina appears then to have been living, and where later he had as a near
neighbour his brother-in-law Vincenzo Foppa ;
previous to their dispute about
the house at Brescia, they seem to have lived on good terms.
We have already alluded to his work in the Certosa of Pavia, executed in
» Provvisioni, September 13 and October 4, 1471, and March 25, 1473.
- See Rassegna d' Arte, November, igoi.
'
Bertolino is the diminutive of Bartolomeo.
* That they were two distinct painters is conclusively proved by the document of
November 21, 1465, already referred to in chapter iii, p. 71 (Atti. di G. Strazzapatti), in
which they are mentioned as follows: "Bertolino de la Canonicha filio domini Johannis,
et Magistro Bertolomeo de Brissia pictore filio quondam Magistri Petri, habitatoribus
Papie."
* Arch. Not. Pavia, Atti di Guiniforte Strazzapatti.