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

Chap. VII. ALTARPIECE, SAVONA 177
in the kneeling figure we have a true likeness of the Cardinal of S.
Pietro in
Vincoli.' What has been said of this portrait does not apply to the figure as
seen in the illustration of the central panel, but to the enlarged detail of the
same from which we are able to form some idea of the quality of Foppa's work
and of his merits as a portrait painter.
The figure of St. John Baptist on the left side of the altarpiece recalls the
composition of the fresco from S. Maria del Giardino in the Castello at Milan,
which, as we have already stated, was no doubt the prototype of this panel ;
but the figure is a complete wreck, and only in the expression of the head,
now a mere shadow, have we some faint indication of the painter's original
intention ;
yet in spite of its deplorable condition it appears to us that Foppa's
own hand is still discernible in it. In the second tier of the altarpiece are
represented the four Fathers of the Church ; in type some of these saints are
certainly closely connected with the master himself, but the confined space
allotted to them must have greatly hampered the painter, who, according to
the terms of the contract, was probably ordered to produce seated figures and
not half-lengths. The stunted proportions, the absence of all feeling for line
and anatomical structure beneath the draperies in some of these figures, are
qualities which seem to remove them from the sphere of Foppa's genuine
works, and the heads, with the exception of that of St. Ambrose, are inferior
to him in truth and sincerity of expression.
Of the four Evangelists in the upper tier it is perhaps scarcely permissible
to speak at all, considering the distance from the eye and the conditions of
light prevailing in the chapel ; but in the panel on the right, the figures of
St. Luke and St. Mark in type and drawing very decidedly recall Lodovico
Brea of Nice, the painter of the large panel with St. John the Evangelist in
the lower tier of this altarpiece. We think it not improbable that having
been entrusted with the execution of so important a share of the work, he may
also have been employed to paint the small lunette for the upper tier on the
same side of the polyptych. In the lunette of the left side, on the other hand,
the figures of St. Matthew and St. John the Evangelist appear to be by a
different painter, and here certain particulars, more especially the pose of
St. John and the foreshortened features of his upturned face, recall the methods
of an artist of the stamp of Buttinone.
The predella is composed of seven panels, corresponding, as will be seen
from the illustration, with the different divisions of the altarpiece. On the left,
' It bears a close resemblance to the kneeling figure of the Cardinal in Mazone's
altarpiece (now in the Louvre), painted for the so-called Sistine Chapel at Savona, and
that this figure represents Giuliano deila Rovere there is not the slightest doubt,
though, as in the case of Foppa's portrait, we cannot tell if it was painted from life.