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

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I70
VINCENZO FOPPA
The document affords the most absolute proof that on this day Foppa
was no longer at Savona, but at Pavia in person, as it is distinctly stated that
judgment was delivered in the presence of Master Vincenzo and Master
Bartolomeo. The arbitrators then with the utmost solemnity and after invoking
the name of "Christ and His Mother the glorious Virgin Mary, and of
the whole Company of Heaven," pronounce sentence: And first. Master
Vincenzo is condemned to pay Bartolomeo his brother-in-law the sum of
thirty-two lire imperiali ; sixteen to be paid within eight days and the remainder
by Easter, which money is to cover all Bartolomeo's claims upon his
brother-in-law in the matter of his inheritance and of the legacy left to him
by his mother Caterina de Bolis.
The sentence on Bartolomeo is of a much more interesting nature. He is
ordered to restore at once to Master Vincenzo the materials which he has in
his keeping for the ornamentation of a cross for the Monastery of the
Carmine at Pavia. Vincenzo is ordered to pay Bartolomeo for the work
executed by him in respect of this cross, which work is to be valued by
two mutual friends. Should they pronounce the work to be worth less than
the eighteen lire imperiali which Vincenzo has already paid in advance to
Bartolomeo, the latter binds himself to restore the difference within the year
or to do as much work in painting for the master as would amount to this sum.
The decision of the judges was acquiesced in by both painters, and from
Doc. 51 we learn that Vincenzo lost no time in performing his part, for
on the same day and at the same hour Bartolomeo acknowledges that he
has received from his brother-in-law nineteen lire imperiali, being part payment
of the thirty-two lire which Vincenzo was ordered to pay to Bartolomeo in the
matter of his inheritance. The sentence on Bartolomeo appears to us
to be so important for two reasons, that we think it desirable to deal with
it
more fully.
In the first place, we have the allusion to the cross for the Carmine at
Pavia, upon which Bartolomeo was engaged ; it had been entrusted to him by
Foppa, who had probably been commissioned by the Carmelites to furnish the
whole work. It is difficult to say exactly wherein this work consisted, but it
may very likely have been one of those large crosses which it was customary
in former days to place in one of the aisles of a church, usually near the High
Altar. The cross for the Carmine, which is spoken of as ornamented, must
have been of wood carved and gilded, and perhaps decorated with paintings
with busts of the Madonna and saints,
or with small scenes from the Passion.
Foppa probably designed the whole, supervised the carver ' and the decorative
^ From a document of January 11, 1481 (Atti di Giov. Pietro Serra, Arch. Not. Pavia),
we know that Cristoforo Rocchi had been commissioned to carve "the large cross
of the Carmine," but unfortunately the record gives us no clue as to the nature of the