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

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VINCENZO FOPPA
brought it thus far at the time when he was summoned by Bertolino della
Canonica, and that after this incident he quitted Genoa in disgust, oblivious
aHke of his engagement with Giuliano della Rovere at Savona and with the
Dominicans at Genoa. It is probable that he then went to Brescia, for in a
Brescian document of December, 1489 (No. 52), allusion is made to the excellence
of his paintings in many cities of Italy, and last of all "in our newly
erected Loggetta." He must therefore have executed an admirable fresco on
the wall of this building before that date, and as we know that he was at Pavia
at the end of October, 1489, it is to be assumed that he began work in the
Loggetta very shortly after quitting Genoa. Zamboni has left us a fairly
exhaustive account of the buildings at Brescia, but curiously enough has
confused the Loggetta in the Piazza Maggiore, where Foppa executed his
paintings, with another similar building, as we shall see later. On the western
side of the Piazza Maggiore rises the Loggia or Palace of Justice ; on the
southern side were the prisons and Monte di Pieta, which were separated
from each other by a Loggetta, and on the eastern side, which is called the
head or upper end of the Piazza and is opposite to the Loggia, was a clocktower
erected in 1447
; later a Loggetta was built beneath this tower, ^ and in
1485 statues of the patron saints of Brescia, SS. Faustino and Giovita, were
added." It was in this new Loggetta that Foppa executed a painting in the
27, 28.
1
See Pandolfo Nassino, Registro, etc., f. 11, and Zamboni, Memorie, etc., pp.
2 A representation of this tower, showing the Loggetta beneath, is preserved in one
of the intarsia choir stalls of S. Bartolomeo at Bergamo (see illustration). Above the
Loggetta were the arms of the Commune—St. Mark between SS. Faustino and Giovita
—with the legend " Brixia Magnipotens." In Nassino's Diary (f. 340) and in the
Provvisioni of 1438 (f. 210) we have a drawing of this composition, which the Brescians
had caused to be represented on a banner and placed in St. Mark's at Venice. It was
used processionally on the Feast of St. Lucy, because on that day Brescia was said to
have been miraculously delivered from the besieging armies of Filippo Maria Visconti
under Niccolo Piccinino by the patron saints of the city, Faustino and Giovita.
Another far better representation of the Loggetta with the clock-tower above, and on
the right the tower of the Broletto and the wall of Cittadella Vecchia, is seen in an
interesting fresco in the Victoria and Albert Museum. According to the label on the
picture, the place represented is Verona, but there is not the slightest doubt that it is
Brescia and that it represents the Piazza Maggiore on the occasion of one of the historic
tournaments which are known to have been held there. We believe it to be identical
with a fresco mentioned by numerous eighteenth and nineteenth century writers of
Brescia—Francesco Gambara, Brugnoli, and others—as in Casa Borgondio della Corte
in that city and by the hand of Ferramola. Fenaroli (pp. 121, 122) describes it accurately,
and identifies the tournament with one held in the Piazza in honour of Caterina
Cornaro (Zamboni, p. 38; Capriolo, Lib. XII, p. 216), who passed several months at
Brescia with her brother, then Podesta of the city (Provvisioni of the year 1497).
Before