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

278 VINCENZO FOPPA
and was a citizen of Milan, they fell into the mistake of supposing that he was also a
Milanese by birth. Later writers like Picinelli and Argelati merely reiterated the
statements of their predecessors ; but it is clear that the theory of Foppa's Milanese
origin rests on no foundation, and may be at once dismissed as purely fictitious.
Of late years the view that he was a Pavian has found many supporters, and it has
been asserted with great decision that he was born at a place which now bears the
name of Foppa, near Bascape, in the neighbourhood of Pavia. In Literature
(April 13, 1901) and the AthencBum (February 15, 1902) we endeavoured to show that
this view was devoid of all foundation, having been first put forward by Campori. In
his Artisti negli Stati Estensi,^ this writer mentioned two documents of 1460
relating to the purchase of land at Rubiera and elsewhere by a painter, Bartolomeo,
son of "Giovanni da Foppa del territorio di Milano." He then tentatively suggested
that this Bartolomeo might have been some relation of Vincenzo Foppa, and he added,
" It may be assumed that the family derived their name from Foppa, a village in the
province of Pavia."^ But what evidence did he produce in support of this theory?
Merely the statement of Zamboni, a somewhat untrustworthy guide in questions
relating to Foppa, that the painter visited Pavia in 1491 in order to make good his
claims to a house which he owned there, and which had come to him "as the dowry
Campori then observed (p. 449) that in one (!) document
or inheritance of his wife."^
he is called " de Foppa," and that according to Zamboni the inscription on his
tombstone speaks of him as " de Foppis."
The fact that Vincenzo's father, like the father of the painter Bartolomeo, was
actually called Giovanni, might have given some colour to the theory, but we believe
that neither of the two documents which contained this statement had been discovered
when Campori wrote in 1855 ; the contract with the Doria (Doc. No. 42) having been
first published by Alizeri in 1870,* the other (Doc. No. 2) by Moiraghi in 1897.^
Proofs such as those brought forward by Campori seem wholly insufficient to justify
a belief in Vincenzo's Pavian origin, nevertheless it was apparently on these grounds
alone that Crowe and Cavalcaselle stated, without further inquiry, that he was born at
"^
Foppa in the province of Pavia.
They were followed later by Don Pietro Moiraghi, a Pavian writer and local patriot
who did much valuable research work in the archives of his native place, but whose
ardent championship of Pavia seems, in the case of Foppa, to have obscured his better
judgment. His views respecting the painter's origin were nevertheless adopted by
other writers,' and on this wholly inadequate basis the theory that Foppa was a native
of Pavian territory was built up.
1
P. 209, ed. 1855.
2 The hamlet of Foppa di Bascap6, which is merely a group of cottages, would never have
been designated as either in Pavian or Milanese territory, being situated in the zone known as
" terrarum comunium," the borderland lying between the two provinces {terra comnnes inter
Papiam et Mediolaiiuni).
* See chap, vm, p. 185. * I, p. 369.
' Alman. Sacr. di Pavia, p. 333. Since the publication of these two documents several
more have come to light, in which the name of Vincenzo's father is mentioned (see Note 3
of this appendix). * II, p. 2.
''
See among others Beltrami in Perseveransa, February, 1899.