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

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Chap. IX. SCHOOL PICTURES: MILAN, ^-c. 241
A fresco of a female fig-urc in the Cortile of Casa Castani at Milan is said
by Crowe and Cavalcaselle' to be in the style of Foppa's St. Sebastian ; but
there is not sufficient character in this much injured fragment to admit of
any definite attribution. Much injured also and restored, is a fresco transferred
to panel formerly in the Bertini Collection, where it was ascribed to
Foppa, and now belonging to Avvocato Cologna at Milan.
It represents the
Madonna enthroned, to whom two donors — probably members of the
Borromeo
family, who formerly owned the house whence this fresco was removed"
are presented by St. John Baptist and a female martyr. The reproduction in
the sale catalogue of the Bertini Collection'shows that though the heads were on
the whole fairly
well preserved, the remainder of the composition was in a ruinous
condition. It was subsequently restored by Professor Cavenaghi, but it is
difficult to guess why it should ever have been ascribed to Vincenzo Foppa,
for it contains few of his distinctive qualities, and can only be regarded as
the work of some anonymous painter of his school.
We have already referred to the picture in
the Cernuschi Collection which
was confused by Caffi with the altarpiece of the Rossi Chapel now at Berlin.
According to the sale catalogue it was signed "V. Foppa," a signature not visible
in the reproduction.
Malaspina Gallery at Pavia (No. 36) inscribed
Evidently by the same hand is the Entombment in the
"V. Foppa F[ecit], "though this
is clearly a forgery. We are unable to speak of the colouring of the Cernuschi
picture, being acquainted with it only in the reproduction, but in the types,
the grouping, and other particulars the two pictures are practically identical,
and there can be little doubt that both were produced by the same painter,
whose connection with the school of Foppa is evident.
Two saints, a bishop, and an abbot, ascribed to Foppa, were sold in 1900
from the collection of Baron Raviscz at Verona, but the illustration in the
sale catalogue would scarcely lead us to suppose that the attribution was justified,
and the same may be said most emphatically of a second picture bearing
the name of Foppa in the Cernuschi Collection, a feeble work of a painter
of the later Milanese school imitating the pose of the central figure in the
Cenacolo of S. Maria delle Grazie.
A picture in the Borromeo Collection has by some writers been described
as an "important work by Foppa," though it
has long been recognized as by
the hand of Bernardo Parentino (or Parenzano), from its evident connection
with his signed work at Modena. By some extraordinary mistake this picture
' II, p. 5.
'
The Casa dell' Umilta, near Santa Maria Fulcorina, a charitable institution founded
in 1444 by Vitaliano Borromeo for distributing food to the poor (Giulini, o/>. c//., VI,
P- 391)-
^ Plate I, No. I. The collection was sold on May 15, 1899.
R