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

i88
VINCENZO FOPPA
in teaching and in executing paintings in diflferent buildings in the city,
according
to his agreement, though we have no clue as to what these paintings
were.
No frescoes now exist at Brescia which could with any probability be
attributed to him, and even works which can with certainty be ascribed
to his school are few in number. It is possible, however, that a fresco in
the Church of S. Maria Calchera mentioned by Ottavio Rossi^ as by Foppa
may have been among the works of this period.
This writer narrates that Paolo Oriani, the celebrated Brescian philosopher
and jurist, having doubted the immortality of the soul, was cured of his scepticism
by a supernatural visitation. On All Souls' Day the spirit of his dead
father Lanfranco appeared to him, and plucking off the wig of long hair
{zazzera)—the insignia of nobility—worn by Paolo, revealed to him that
thus death would despoil man, even as he, Lanfranco, now removed the hair
from the head of his son.
This vision, added Rossi, was painted by Foppa in the ancient Church of
S. Maria Calcari with an inscription recording the incident. As Lanfranco
Oriani died in 1488, and his son Paolo in July, 1495,^ the fresco must have
been executed between these years and as Foppa only returned to settle at
Brescia in the second half of 1490, the period of its production, if it was
actually by him, would fall between 1490 and 1495. It must, however, be
added that no other writer mentions the work, and that in matters of art
Rossi is extremely untrustworthy, as proved by his short notice of Foppa,
which is a mass of errors. No trace of the work is now to be found in
S. Maria Calchera, and it was doubtless destroyed when the church was
enlarged and restored in the second half of the sixteenth century on the
initiative of the parish priest Silvino Silvini.^
work by " Foppa " executed in 1495 was still
If we are to believe Sala,* another
existing in 1834, in the collection
of Signor Giovanni Averoldi, at Brescia ; according to this writer, it bore the
inscription *'
1495 depicta per Magistrum Vincentium Brixiensem."
We have been unable to trace this picture ; it is no longer at Brescia, and
from Fenaroli's allusion to it as "formerly in the collection of Signor Averoldi"
it is to be assumed that when he wrote (in 1877) it had already disappeared.
Neither have we any clue as to the subject, nor the slightest proof that this
Vincenzo Bresciano was Foppa ; hence we only mention the fact here with the
utmost reserve, and refer our readers to what is said relating to "Vincenzo
Foppa the younger" in chapter x, and to the note on the numerous painters
Vincenzo of Brescia, in Appendix I, Note 5.
^
Op. cit., p. 202.
-
Peroni, Vol. Ill, pp. 7-9.
^ Fe, op. cit., V, p. 42.
*
Guida di Brescia.