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

APPENDIX II, A 301
My Illustrious and Excellent Lord.
The other day I sent to Pavia Masters Vinrenzo, Bonifacio da Cremona, and
Jacobino Vicemala the painters, to see that ancona and the chapel, in order to make
designs, and an estimate of the cost of adorning and painting it ; which masters have
now made the said designs and the estimate, that is to say, the designs for the ancona
in two different ways : one in gold, the other in white, burnished and outlined in gold,
with an architrave for each compartment of the said ancona, which architrave is to be
either in gold, or in white, according to the ornamentation of the ancona. The
architrave or architraves have never before been taken into consideration, nor have
they ever been discussed till now, but the painters say the ancona will not look well
without them. For the ceiling of the chapel they have made only one design, that is
with the dove surrounded by rays, on a blue background ;
which ceiling has never been
taken into account either, but I hear that it would not look well in any other way.
Therefore, in order that your Excellency may decide which of the two designs is to be
adopted for the painting and decorating of the said ancona, I am sending these masters,
Vincenzo, Zanetto, and Bonifacio, the painters named above, with the said designs.
But in order that your Excellency may understand the relative cost of adorning and
painting the ancona and the ceiling, I would observe in the first place that to decorate
the ancona with gold as in the design would cost according to the estimate . . .
including the 200 saints which are to be painted and the ornamentation of the 200
reliquaries, about 1506 ducats . . . and to gild the architraves and the ceiling
according to the drawing would come to . . . about 662 ducats, everything included.
To execute the ancona in the other way, that is, in white, burnished and outlined in
gold, would cost about 1175 ducats, and to paint the architraves also in white and gold
would cost about 155 ducats, and to decorate the gallery of the chapel would amount,
they say, to about 50 ducats. For all which about 1000 ducats is available out of the
2000 assigned for the work. The other thousand has all been spent on the carvings of
the ancona. Therefore it is necessary that your Highness should arrange as seems
best about the money that is still required, and should decide which painters are to
be employed to paint the said ancona, for all the painters of Milan both good and bad
desire to be employed upon it, and leave me no peace ;
but if your Highness desires to
know which are the painters most competent for this work. Master Vincenzo will tell
you, for every painter is not equal to it.
Further, as the reliquaries of this ancona are two hundred in number, and I have not
received the list of more than eighty relics, and having heard from Count Giovanni' . . .
that many of them are very small so that we shall have to put four, five,
or six together,
I should wish to be instructed by your Highness as to which saint is to be painted
over the spaces of these said caskets in which the different relics are to be enshrined ;
and if it seems good to your Highness, it appears to me that we should have the
principal ones painted, though we should inscribe the names of all
those saints whose
relics are represented, as the painters will inform your Lordship. I shall, however, be
guided by the opinion of your Highness, whom I wish also to inform of the fact that
I have two masters working here on the carvings destined for the gallery, and there are
no others who could do the work. And for the gallery a painted window with the
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Giovanni Attendolo, Governor of the Castle of Favia.