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

222 VINCENZO FOPPA
1
501.' This book, which must have contained all information relating to the
payment of the "livello " to the quarter in 1498" and earlier, would probably
have afforded further proof that "Vincenzo the painter, son of the late
Giovanni of Bagnolo " (App. I, Note 3) was identical with Vincenzo Foppa
whom we have traced up to his dismissal by the Brescian Government in 1495,
and whom we shall be able to trace in Brescian documents again from 1501
up to the time of his death in 15 15 or 1516/ So far as we have been able to
discover, there was no other artist named Vincenzo then— that is up to the
end of the fifteenth century—living at Brescia, who could be identified with
the Vincenzo of the first quarter of S. Alessandro ; it is therefore, we think,
permissible to assume that the painter mentioned in 1498 is Vincenzo Foppa,
and that he may be rightly described in future as the son of Giovanni da
Bagnolo and of Brescian birth/
The whole subject of Foppa's later years has been fully dealt with elsewhere,'
but it is necessary for clearness sake to recapitulate some of what has
already been said. The next notice which we find relating to Vincenzo
Foppa at Brescia is in a volume of the Archives of S. Alessandro.^ The
first part of this book (from fol. i to fol. 71) deals with the rent charge already
alluded to, and is called Libro delle Partite dei Livellarii. The second part
of the volume (from fol. 147 v. to the end), which is divided from the first part
by sixty-five blank pages, has no heading, but contains statements of accounts
entered by the different massari or overseers of the quarter between the years
1501 and 1523, and may therefore, according to the label on the outside of the
volume, be termed the Libro di Cassa, or book of accounts.^
It was the duty of the massaro, who was elected annually and was re-eligible
subject to the approval of the General Council, to collect all sums due to the
authorities of the quarter, and to enter them in this volume together with
other items of receipt and expenditure. On fol. 147 v. therefore, the first page
^ See Capilupi, Storia delta Quadra, etc., ff. 15-34.
"
In which year Foppa, as already stated, was living in the first ward of
S. Alessandro.
^ App. II. Docs. Nos. 71, 72, 74, 75.
* This question is fully discussed in Appendix I, Note 3, and it has been shown that
this Vincenzo of Bagnolo cannot be identified with Vincenzo Civerchio, who was also
living at Brescia, but is always referred to as Vincenzo da Crema, and is registered in
the Estimo as living in a totally different part of the city, i.e. in the fourth ward of
S. Faustino.
^ See the Athemsttm, February 15, 1902, and the Burlington Magazine, March,
1903, p. 103.
* Labelled: Quadra Mastro Cassa 1502-1523 Masseria, 1°.
' For convenience sake these books will in future be referred to as the " rent-book"
and the "account-book."