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

Chap. VI. FRESCOES FOR S. MARIA DEL GIARDINO 151
Certosa of Chiaravalle, it is evident that his art and that of the Brcscian
painter must have been closely allied in sentiment, and that Foppa would
naturally have felt himself in fullest sympathy with an artist whose work in
its very essence must have had many points of contact with his own.
Hence it is extremely likely that personal intercourse with Bramante at
Milan between the years 1474 and i486 may have affected Foppa to a
certain extent,' and we think this a
far more probable and logical explanation
of the new developments perceptible in his work— of his wider range of vision
and of the greater knowledge displayed by him in grappling with problems
of architectural and aerial perspective—than the assumption that it was the
indirect influence of Mantegna which wrought these changes in his art.
But in putting forward the possibility that intercourse with Bramante had
some effect upon the art of Foppa at this period, we must not lose sight of
the fact that all the works which appear to afford some proof of this are but
isolated examples of his art ;
that the great cycles of frescoes at Milan executed
by him long before the advent of Bramante have perished, and that the only
examples still existing in situ which, as we have seen, may with some probability
be ascribed to him—the Fathers of the Church in the Portinari Chapel
—show an admirable knowledge of perspective in the rendering of the
medallions, more especially in that containing the figure of St. Ambrose ;
and
these medallions, if we are to accept Bugati's date, were executed at least six
years before Bramante came to Milan.
1481-87) Foppa may have painted for the great Franciscan
In these years (c.
Church of S. Maria del Giardino" the two frescoes of SS. Francis and John
Baptist which are now preserved in the Castello Museum. The church, which
was of immense size, covered the ground now occupied by Via Romagnosi, and
according to Gualdo Priorato,^ it was full of admirable paintings by renowned
artists ; unfortunately he specifies none of them, and Foppa's frescoes receive
no mention from any Milanese writers. At the time of the Cisalpine Republic
the church was desecrated and used for military purposes, but the building
remained intact until 1865, when it was destroyed, and during the process of
demolition these frescoes were brought to light.* The pillars on which they
were painted had, during some process of restoration to the church in the
^
In the North Italian Painters of the Renaissance, Foppa is catalogued as "influenced
later by Bramante," p. i8 (and see also p. 98), a view also adopted by the
author of the Winchester Charts {Painters of North Italy).
- The church derived its name from the garden, which was acquired from the
Torriani family by the Franciscans with money left
Milanese gentleman. The building was begun in 1456.
^ Op. cit., p. 106.
* Perseveranza, August 11 and December 15, 1865.
for the purpose by Marco Figini, a