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

248 VINCENZO FOPPA
which, in spite of their manifest development and their tendency to refine and
soften the traditional types of the early school, yet in the main show so close
a connection with Foppa, that there is no doubt art historians are right in
classing him among the pupils of the Brescian master, of whose principles
and methods this noble artist and admirable painter was certainly the most
able and gifted exponent/ That Bergognone adhered faithfully to the
principles of the school in which he was trained long after Foppa himself had
quitted the Duchy of Milan and settled at Brescia, is proved by numerous
works of his so-called Certosan epoch, extending certainly up to 1494, and
probably beyond this period, and even in his latest work, the Assumption of
1522, many obvious links with his master are still apparent. If he was ever
drawn into the vortex of Leonardesque art, its influence upon him could only
have been transient, for though from the very nature of his art he may
have been favourably disposed towards the tendencies of the new school, they
never to any perceptible degree affected his art, which is always, as Morelli
pointed out,
thoroughly Lombard in character."
Again, the centre and right wing of Civerchio's altarpiece, executed in
1495 for the Church of S. Barnaba at Brescia'—in which are represented
St. Nicholas of Tolentino and St. Roch— as well as other paintings by him
in that city and elsewhere, show so decided a connection with Foppa (with
whom, as we saw, Civerchio has been constantly confounded from the time
of Vasari downwards), that he also is reckoned among the pupils of Vincenzo
Foppa. It is extremely probable, even if Civerchio did not accompany the
master to Brescia in 1490, that it was the influence of Foppa which obtained
for him employment in that city, for, as already noted, he is registered in
the Estimo of 1498 as living in one of the wards of the quarter of S. Faustino.
At that date therefore he must have been a citizen of Brescia, and we
know from notices in the Provvisioni and elsewhere that he executed frescoes
in the city between 1493 and 1497/ but we find no trace of him in the Libri
d' Estimo of earlier or later date, that is to say, in the registers of i486 or
^ It may be added that this painter is not the only one of the name. A second, also
named Ambrogio, but whose father bore the name of Giorgio, and who was apprenticed
to Leonardo Vidolenghi on January 24, 1481, has recently come to light in the Archives
of Pavia. He may possibly be the author of some of the pictures which are clearly not
by the well-known master, Ambrogio the son of Stefano, but which for want of a
more appropriate attribution are ascribed to him ; among them is the interesting
Madonna and Child enthroned with a kneeling donor and two saints, signed " Ambrosii
Bergognoni 1510," in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace.
- Morelli, III, p. 135.
^
The left wing shows a marked connection with the Leonardesque school.
* Zamboni, op. cit., 109, note 29, and Calvi, II, 211.