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

2 VINCENZO FOPPA
the early fifteenth century, so that when Pandolfo Malatesta* desired to have
the chapel in the Palace of the Broletto painted (between 1410 and 1418), he
entrusted the work to Gentile da Fabriano probably because there was no
painter at Brescia equal to the task.
Two Brescian masters are indeed greatly extolled by the historian Elia
Capriolo r Ottaviano Prandino, who is now generally identified with the
painter Ottaviano Bressano mentioned by the Anonimo' (on the authority of
Andrea Rizzo) as having worked at Padua in company with the Veronese
Altichiero/ and Bartolomeo Testorino, who according to Brescian writers
executed a fresco in the Crypt of S. Faustino Maggiore at Brescia.' We
have definite references to this painter at Brescia in 1416,^ 142 1, and 1426,
but he was already dead by 1430.' It is therefore chronologically impossible
that Vincenzo could have received instruction from either of these masters,
who belong to the first quarter of the fifteenth century.*
In the Brescian Archives we meet with the names of many painters living
in different quarters of the city between 1430 and 1440, but they came mostly
^
Pandolfo Malatesta, having wrested Brescia from the Visconti in 1404, ruled the
city until 1421, when it was retaken by the troops of Filippo Maria Visconti under
Carmagnola. Eventually Brescia was taken by the Venetians, and in accordance with
the terms of peace concluded on December 30, 1426, and signed in S. Giorgio Maggiore
at Venice, Brescia with the greater part of its territory was then ceded by Filippo
Maria Visconti to the Republic (see Battistella, // Conte Carmagnola, etc., p. 144).
Vincenzo Foppa must therefore have been born a Venetian subject.
* Delle Historic . . . di Brescia, Lib. IX, p. 167.
' Notizia d'opere di disegno, ed. Frizzoni, p. 78.
* Michele Savonarola, writing in 1445, mentions that a painter " Octavlano " executed
frescoes at Padua with Altichlero, and it is generally assumed that he was
Identical with "Ottaviano Bressano" (see Muratori, Vol. XXIV, ed. Carducci, and
Fiorinl, Cltta di Castello: Libellus de magnificis Ornameiitis R. Civitatis Paditce, a cura
di A. Segarizzi).
" The frescoes in the crypt, mentioned by Rossi and other writers, perished when
the old church was destroyed in the autumn of 1620 (see Bianchi, Diario, November 5,
1620, in Miscellanea Zamboni, MS. Queriniana Library, Brescia).
* See Libri d'Estimo (the tax-payers' registers), an. 1388 and 1416, II Sancti Joannis,
Archlvio Antico Municlpale Brescia.
' Provvisionl del ConsiglioCittadino, June 18, 1421, where mention is madeof paintings
executed by " Bertolino, dicto Testorino," and other masters. He was still living
in May, 1426, as his name Is entered in a volume of accounts of that year, an autograph
MS. by Cristoforo Soldo, f. 16 v., No. 192. By 1430 the painter was already
dead, as his widow is spoken of in that year (Estimo 1430 f.
12 v.).
'^
Moreover, we have never found a trace of Ottaviano Prandino in the Registers at
Brescia, and must assume that he was not a citizen and did not live there ;
another
reason why he could not have taught Foppa.