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

i84
VINCENZO FOPPA
obtain an interesting glimpse of the city at the close of the fifteenth century
and in the early years of the sixteenth, and from his description we gather
that conditions must have been very diflferent then from what they were at the
time when Foppa quitted his home to seek more congenial surroundings at
Pavia. Capriolo quotes from a letter of Girolamo Campagnola' addressed
to Cassandra Veneta- at Padua, in which he exhorts her to come to Brescia,
a city almost divine (" questa quasi che divina citta "), and among other
things speaks of the "great multitude of artists who there exercise their craft
There can be
and produce every kind of work pertaining to the use of man."'
no doubt that the return to Brescia of her most illustrious painter must have
given a great impetus to the art life of the city, and the brilliant conditions
described by Campagnola may have been due in some degree to the presence
and influence of Vincenzo Foppa. The first work entrusted to him was that
of completing the frescoes in the new Loggetta, which, as we saw, he had probably
begun in the summer of 1489, paintings which had won for him the cordial
approbation of the authorities. On October 4, 1490, a measure was passed in
the General Council for the further adornment of this building. It was
decided to entrust to the Special Council the selection of two deputies who,
with Francesco Miglio, one of the Commissioners of Works in the new Loggetta,
were to provide for the execution of paintings here by Master Vincenzo,
"the excellent painter our fellow-citizen" (Doc. No. 56). On the 26th of
November the master petitioned to be paid for paintings which he had
executed on the south wall of this Loggetta at the upper end of the Piazza ;
this doubtless referred to the first works which he had executed in 1489, and
the Commissioners were instructed to make a careful examination of these
paintings, and then to issue an order to him for the remainder of his pay
(No. 57).
These entries make the position of the Loggetta perfectly clear,
and also
serve to explain Zamboni's mistake, alluded to in chapter vii, page 164; it
doubtless arose from his having understood the reference to the south wall to
apply to the position of the Loggetta on the southern side of the Piazza ;
whereas there can be no doubt that these entries refer to the building at
the head* or upper end of the Piazza, which is the eastern side, on the
south wall of which Foppa had painted a fresco.'^
1 No doubt the same to whom allusion was made in chap, i, p. 4.
° Probably the Cassandra Fedele mentioned by Philippus Bergomensis, p. 165.
See also A?tom'mo, ed. Morelli, 1800, p. 102, for another letter to her from Campagnola.
^ DeW Iston'e, etc., Book I, p. 14.
* "A capite platee " (Doc. No. 57).
^
See the illustration of this Loggetta in chap. vii.