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

230 VINCENZO FOPPA
that he is to be buried in that particular church for which he had a special
devotion, "ad quam gerit specialem devotionem. " Two seventeenth century
Brescian writers, Rossi' and Cozzando,^ mention the fact that Foppa was
Barnaba, but neither of them gives any particulars relating to his
buried in S.
tomb. Zamboni in 1778 was the first to publish a description of the tombstone,
which he says existed in his day in the eastern corner of the first cloister ;
it
was inscribed, he states : *' Excellentis. ac. Eximii. Pictoris. M. Vincentii. De.
Foppis. Ci. Bx. 1492, and the painter's Arms," he adds : "a bean stem with
pods and leaves," were sculptured upon it.^ Zamboni does not say that he
read this inscription himself, but merely observes that it was in existence when
he wrote ; he may not therefore have been personally responsible for the
dissemination of a totally false statement with regard to the date of Foppa 's
death. It is probable that the inscription was partially obliterated, and was
therefore misread by his informant;* in any case, Zamboni 's version of this
date as 1492 was universally accepted, and it is only since the fortunate discovery
in the municipal archives at Brescia that Foppa was still alive in 1495
—a clue which led to the further discovery of all the records in the Archives of
S. Alessandro— that it has been possible to prove conclusively that the painter
lived about twenty-four years longer than was formerly supposed, a fact fully
confirmed, as we have seen, by the Pavian documents.^
^ Op. cit., p. 508.
^ Vago Ristretto, etc., p. 128.
' Op. cit., p. 32, note 48. In the MS. of this book {Memorie di Brescia, etc.),
written in 1774, Zamboni makes no mention either of the tombstone or of the inscription.
His remarks about Foppa (f. 68) are limited to a reference to the Loggetta paintings
and to the documents of 1489-91. The information about the tombstone must have
reached him later, and he incorporated it when the book was printed in 1778.
* According to Zani {Enciclopedia, IX, p. 226, note 84), it was Oretti who read and
copied the inscription and no doubt communicated it to Zamboni. As the question turns
upon an inscription which no longer exists, and as in all probability Zamboni himself
never saw the original, we cannot refrain from expressing some doubts as to whether
this inscription did in effect commemorate Foppa, who not being of noble lineage would
not have been entitled to armorial bearings, and whose tombstone, we might infer from
Document 78, was of a very simple character. Is it not possible that the tomb was that
of a member of the noble and well-known Brescian family of Fava? whose canting
arms—a play upon the word "fava" (bean)—were not improbably "a bean stalk with
pods and leaves." In this case the inscription, misread by Zamboni's informant,
might be reconstructed as follows: " [SepulcrumJ Excellentis[simi] ac Eximii Doctoris
M[agistri] Vincentii De Favis Ci[vis] B[ri]x[iensis] 1492."
^ In Calepino's dictionary, which was first published in 1502, Foppa is spoken of
with living painters— Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, and Leonardo da Vinci— and there is
nothing in this writer's mention of Vincenzo which would lead us to suppose that he
was dead ;
the same may be said of Elia Capriolo's allusion to Foppa in his first
edition of 1505 {op. cit., p. Ixxx). Nicoli-Cristiani affirms {Brevi Not., p. 157) that