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

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Chap. IX. ARCHIVES OF S. ALESSANDRO AT BRESCIA 221
the gates of Torre Lunga and S. Alessandro (the present Porta Venezia and
Porta Cremona), and was bounded on the north by the quarter of S.
Stefano,
or as it was called later Cittadella Vecchia and Nuova, and on the west
by two wards of the quarter of S. Giovanni, from which it was divided by the
River Garza. The first ward of S. Alessandro, with which alone we are concerned
here, comprised the whole of the parish of that name and part of that
of S. Lorenzo, and had besides rights over a certain number of houses in the
Via Porta Nova, which though actually outside the limits of the quarter, had
been ab antiquo under the jurisdiction of S. Alessandro. Like all the
other divisions of the city, this first ward of the quarter of S. Alessandro had
a well-regulated administration modelled on that of the general governing
body of the city, and consisting of two syndics, a massaro or overseer,
two legal advisers, twelve councillors, accountants, and other officials, with a
General and a Special Council, on the former of which every head or representative
of a family was allowed to sit,
provided he had lived for ten years in
the quarter. Every year he received a voting paper or buletta entitling
him to record his vote for the election of the new syndic.
The books of the quarter were kept with the greatest precision and accuracy
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In the second half of the eighteenth
century, however, it was discovered that the archives of the quarter were in
great confusion, and the administrators determined to have them rearranged
; many documents were then found to be illegible and some
volumes were missing, but on the whole their timely efforts have been of
the greatest service to succeeding generations ; the volumes containing entries
relating to the payment of rents and rent charges due to the administrators of
the quarter' (Libro de' Livellarii), and statements of receipts and expenditure
by the various administrators throughout the sixteenth century (Libro di
Cassa), as well as an earlier volume containing grants of leases (Libro Istromenti
di Investitura) of the second half of the fifteenth century, and many
other original documents of great interest, have been preserved absolutely
intact and can be easily deciphered.
One volume which is unfortunately missing is that in which we know that
Francesco da Mantua, one of the massari of the quarter, and his predecessors
in office had entered all the accounts pertaining to a term of years prior to
' These payments to the administrators of the quarter, termed "canone enfiteutico "
(emphyteusis) or "livello," are similar to those mentioned when we were speaking of
Foppa's house at Pavia, being of the nature of a fee farm rent.
^ The books are now most carefully kept under lock and key in an upper room over
the cloisters of S. Alessandro. Through the great kindness of the priest of that church,
Don Santo Losio, permission was given to study in these archives, and to examine the
volumes of records, a list of which will be found in the bibliography of MSS.