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

LOST OR MISSING WORKS KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN
EXECUTED BY FOPPA, AND OTHERS OF DOUBTFUL
AUTHENTICITY ASCRIBED TO HIM BY BRESCIAN'
AND MILANESE WRITERS
1461.
Ceiling fresco, Chapel of St. John Baptist, Cathedral, Genoa. Docs. 3 and
4, App. II, A; ch. I, pp. 29-31. Destroyed.
May, 1462.
Signed work, altarpiece (?) for the Abbot of Morimondo in the Carmine,
Pavia. Subject unknown, probably Madonna and Saints, see ch. 11, pp.
32-35. Missing.
After June, 1462.
Hospital, Milan. Frescoes under the Colonnade : ceremonies relating to
the laying of the stone by Francesco and Bianca Maria Sforza, with
numerous portraits. Ch. 11, p. 40. Destroyed.
Begun 1462-1464 {?).
Medici Bank, Milan. Frescoes in the Loggia, left-hand side of principal
Cortile : Episodes from the history (The Justice ?) of Trajan, eight figures of
Emperors, portraits of Francesco and Bianca Maria Sforza and their children,
and other paintings. Ch. 11, p. 45 and foil. Destroyed.
1
We have not included in this list the frescoes of the crypt of S. Faustino
Maggiore at Brescia, ascribed to Foppa by Rossi {Hist., etc., de' . . SS. Mart. Fatist.
e. Giov., p. 70), who was followed by Faini and others. According to Faini (Vita
etc., de' SS. Faust, e. Giovita, p. 104), the series was painted to celebrate the rediscovery
of the sarcophagus containing the remains of the saints in 1455. Yet the
painter associated with Foppa in this work is stated to have been Testorino, who died,
as we saw (p. 2), before 1430. Other writers name Coltrino as the associate of Foppa,
a well-known architect in the last decades of the fifteenth century but not a painter,
though erroneously described as such by late writers of Brescia. The whole story is
so improbable that we have omitted all mention of these frescoes, which perished when
the crypt was destroyed in 1620, as stated in ch. i (p. 2, note 5).
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