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

Chap. VIII. PROCESSIONAL BANNER, ORZINUOVI 215
held by both saints, and in other parts ;
gold is sparingly used except in the
disk-shaped glories and in the interlaced pattern which borders the whole,
framing in the compositions on the back and front of the canvas. On the
reverse, which was not seen by Morelli (he being unaware that the picture
was a processional banner), we have an extremely characteristic figure of
St. Sebastian, the drawing of the form being in closest relation with that of
other nude figures by the master—with the drawing of the body of the
Dead
Christ in the Berlin Pieta, and with that of the two other examples of
St. Sebastian treated by Foppa. The figure in the Orzinuovi banner is considerably
later in date than either of these two last-named representations of
the saint, and in knowledge of structural and anatomical problems is also
decidedly in advance of them. The St. Roch on the right is admirably
drawn and of the utmost vitality in the expression of the features, a figure
which in type vividly recalls the St. Paul belonging to Cav. Noseda, and
affords a further proof,
as already noted, of the correctness of the attribution
to Foppa of that panel. The St. George, and the angel who hovers above
St.
Sebastian with the palm of martyrdom, seem to betray a weaker hand than
that of Foppa himself, and might lead us to suppose that the aged master
may have left the completion of the banner to one of the assistants of his
workshop, though the awkwardness of pose may be due, as in the case of the
St. Alexander of the Brera altarpiece, to the rigid nature of the armour in
which the saint is entirely cased.'
But taking it all in all the picture is an interesting and valuable addition to
the small number, at present known, of late works by Vincenzo Foppa. The
strongly marked character of most of the figures, the individual drawing of the
forms, the very distinctive quality of the flesh tones, and the colour of the
drapery all tend to place the authorship of the master beyond dispute. The
painter may in the first instance have been recommended to the donors who
commissioned the banner by those of his friends at Brescia who were natives
of Orzinuovi or who were otherwise connected with the place. ^ There is no
doubt that the banner was painted to be carried processionally on the occasion
of special intercessions in times of plague and trouble ; many allusions to such
processions occur in Codagli's history of Orzinuovi/ and in the Deliberations
of the Town Council, though we have been unable to discover the exact date
when this banner was dedicated. It is true that Perini in his MS. history of
the churches of Orzinuovi, written some twenty years ago, states that it is the
' See chap. v.
2
We know Foppa to have been personally connected with several natives of
Orzinuovi who had settled at Brescia. Matteo Caccia, for instance, whose house the
painter eventually bought at
Brescia, came originally from that place.
^ F. Domenico Codagli, Hktoria Ofceana, ed. 1592, p. 131 and foil.