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

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Chap. IX. PAOLO CAYLINA, FOPPAS NEPHEW 233
repairs to, the processional banner mentioned in chapter viii, and as the item
is crossed out it may be that it referred to a debt already settled which had
been entered here by mistake. Finally of great interest is the statement
(part i) made by Paolo Caylina relating to his property, namely, "a house
in Brescia for his use, which house may be of the value of 900 lire, and for
which he pays a livello every year to the quarter of S. Alessandro of 4 lire,
15 soldi." There cannot be the slightest doubt that this is the house of Vincenzo
Foppa so often alluded to,' and though the name of the master himself
does not occur in this document, it is quite certain, in the light of our present
knowledge, that the second part refers to the winding up of his affairs by his
executor and nephew Paolo Caylina. Hence, failing the master's will, it is
the most important document we at present possess concerning his last years,
and were we able to explain all the items in this list and to identify all the
persons therein named, some further clues might be obtained for elucidating
the history of the painter's life and work.
The fame of Vincenzo Foppa outlived that of many of his less gifted contemporaries,
and has survived to the present day, in spite of the neglect of
succeeding generations and the misconception of his art in an uncritical age,
which has led to some of his best works being ascribed to other painters.^
Like all great masters, he too has suffered the misfortune of being held
responsible for paintings which are unworthy of him or which show but
a remote connection with his art, though his name has not been so freely used
to cover all Lombard works of a certain date as has been the case, for
instance, with the name of Giovanni Bellini in the Venetian school.
Foppa, so far as we know, was never employed by the great art patrons
who held sway at the courts of Mantua and Ferrara ; nor did he ever
occupy under Lodovico il Moro the prominent position which he held at
the Court of Milan during the reigns of Francesco and Galeazzo Maria Sforza,
and both in Liguria and at Brescia he fell into disfavour with his employers in
his latter years ; hence he was comparatively little known outside the limits of
his immediate sphere of activity,' a fact which may in a measure account
1 See pp. 191, 223 and foil., Docs. Nos. 72, 77, 81-83.
^
We may briefly recall a few of these misattributions, which have been referred to
in these pages, and were rectified by art criticism in the last decades of the nineteenth
century. The Brera altarpiece, formerly ascribed to the Milanese school and subsequently
to Zenale ; the National Gallery picture and the fresco at Hertford House,
ascribed to Bramantino ; the St. Sebastian of the Castello Museum, to Bramante or
Bramantino ; the altarpiece of S. Maria di Castello at Savona, to Vincenzo Catena (!)
the Berlin Pieta, to Bramante and later to the Milanese school, etc.
^ Foppa is not mentioned by Giov. Sanzio in the ninety-sixth chapter of his wellknown
rhyming chronicle, in which he eulogizes so many contemporary painters, nor by
Mucius in his Theatriun. This is the more remarkable as the last-named, a writer of