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

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VINCENZO FOPPA
conditions applied to him, and it was in order to obtain tliis exceptional favour for the
stranger Vincenzo that she successfully exercised her authority with the Pavian administration.
The privileges must have been promptly granted, for in the following October,
1468, Galeazzo Maria, writing to recommend Foppa for the citizenship, observes
"In consequence of the letters of our illustrious mother, he has been permitted to
acquire property, and has already bought a house" (Doc. No. 15). But though a
householder and a citizen, Vincenzo never, so far as we have been able to discover,
speaks of himself, or is spoken of, except by those who knew nothing of him, as a
Pavian, but is invariably called " de Fopa de Brisia," or "de Bressia."
Why, it may be well asked, if he was a Pavian by origin, should he always be
careful to proclaim himself a Brescian?
In 1489 (Doc. No. 52) a petition from Master Vincenzo was laid before the Council
of Brescia by two of its members, in which he expressed his desire to repatriate with
his family, and requested permission to open a school there and instruct the youth of
the city in painting and architecture at a fixed salary for the remainder of his life.
The use of the word "repatriate" seems an additional proof of his Brescian origin,
and was used in a similar sense by his compatriot and associate in art, Bonifazio
Bembo, who, though usually called of Cremona, was in fact of Brescian birth.i It is
noticeable that in the next two deliberations of the Council relating to our painter
he is called " Vincentio Brixiano," and then again " de Foppa Brixiano," but there is
never a word which would lead us to suspect that he might have been a stranger
from the Milanese or Pavian districts who had applied for leave to open a school
at Brescia.
The proofs afforded by these documents appear to us to be far more convincing
than the statements of sixteenth century writers ; but as we have spoken of Lomazzo
and others in connection with the theory of Foppa's Milanese origin, it should be mentioned
that three contemporaries of the master— Filarete, who knew him at Milan
between 1456 and 1465 ; Calepino of Bergamo, the Augustinian, who published his
Dictionary in
1503; and Capriolo, the Brescian historian, whose history was first printed
in 1505—all speak of Vincenzo as a Brescian. The " Anonimo " (Marcantonio Michiel),
writing in the first half of the sixteenth century, alludes to him twice as "Vincenzo
Bressano il Vecchio," and Vasari, in his second edition of 1568, mentions a painter
Vincenzo in the lives of Michelozzo, Filarete, and Carpaccio, designating him once
Vincenzo Bresciano. In Vasari's first edition, however, of 1550 this Vincenzo is only
once mentioned throughout the work, as follows: "At Brescia a certain Vincenzo
Verchio exercised his art, a skilled and practised fresco painter who, by reason of his
good work, acquired a great reputation in Brescia, his native place. "-
Vasari's annotators' have thought that the biographer was here alluding to Vincenzo
Civerchio, but it seems unlikely that a comparatively insignificant artist like Civerchio
should have been singled out as the one painter of Brescia worthy of a place in Vasari's
' See Arch. Stor. Lomb., 1876, and Nagler, Kiinstlerlexicon, ed. 1885.
^ " In Brescia esercit6 1' arte un Vincenzo Verchio pratico e valente nel lavorare in fresco, il
quale per le belle opere sue acquist6 grandissimo noma in Brescia sua patria " (Life of Carpaccio,
p. 540).
3 III, 633, ed. Mil.