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

12 VINCENZO FOPPA
thing of the spirit of Jacopo Bellini still survives. M. Victor Goboulew, who
with the utmost courtesy has placed his views on this subject at our disposal,
states, that basing his opinion on the drawings of the sketch-book, he has
no hesitation in affirming that the copyist has not modified these figures, and
he sees no reason why this canvas should not be regarded as a reproduction
(with certain modifications) of the fresco. This is also our own conviction,
in spite of the contrary opinions of Prof. Simeoni and Prof. Ricci,' and
from this point of view the copy is of great interest for us, for we may assume
that, at least so far as the three figures on the cross are concerned, it
preserves
the central composition of the lost fresco.
From this copy we see that the thieves were bound with cords to crosses''
fashioned of tree stems rudely put together and set at right angles to the
Cross of Christ ; this form of representation Vincenzo has adopted for his
picture, while in other particulars he appears to have taken as his model a
drawing by Jacopo Bellini in the Paris sketch-book, and in the pose and outward
relations of the figures to one another he follows in the main in his master's
footsteps. The different points of resemblance between these three works will
be seen on comparing the illustrations, which show how far Vincenzo formed
himself upon the drawing or upon some composition closely resembling it,
and in what particulars he must have followed the original of the Casa
Albrizzi picture, i.e. the fresco at Verona.
' Both these writers, while denying that it represents the composition of Verona,
nevertheless consider that it is the copy of some other lost work by Jacopo Bellini, though
their arguments on this point are not convincing. The discrepancies which they refer to
between this copy, and the description of the fresco written by an eye-witness a few days
after the destruction of the work, are easily explained when we consider that in a copy
of small dimensions it would have been impossible to reproduce the whole of what was
contained in a large fresco covering the entire wall of a chapel. The measurements of
the picture were given by the late Vicomte Both de Tauzia as n5 h. by cgS w. ; see
Dessins, etc., du Louvre, 1888, p. 14. This composition therefore can only be regarded as
a free version of the original, in which the sixteenth century copyist introduced numerous
changes and modifications ; he omitted, for instance, the angels in long white robes (receiving
the blood of the Redeemer (?)) mentioned by the eye-witness Cignaroli, a fifteenth
century motive which, as M. Goboulew points out, would have been considered too
archaic by a painter of that date ; for the same reason, doubtless, the scrolls with
inscriptions, referred to by Cignaroli, were omitted ;
and for lack of space the donor
with his attendant clergy also found no place in the copy, where moreover their presence
would have had little significance. But this has no bearing on the case from our point
of view, for, as already observed, our sole concern is with the three central figures.
^ This was the more usual manner of representing the thieves, both in early art and
throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in order to emphasize the difference
between the Saviour and the malefactors, though there are exceptions, and Duccio and
Fra Angelico, among other painters, have depicted the thieves nailed to their crosses.