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

Chap. I. REMOVAL TO PAVIA c. 1456 19
mona,' Foppa may have been brought to
the notice of Bartolomeo Gadio, a
native of that city, who had long filled the post of architect and engineer to
the Duke, and in 1454 had been appointed overseer-in-chief of all the works
in the Castello at Milan. The splendid openings which Pavia and Milan
must at this period have offered to artificers of every description, added
perhaps to the deplorable conditions then prevailing in his home, doubtless
hastened Vincenzo's resolve to remove with his family to Pavia, for towards
the close of 1455 Brescia was ravaged by plague and devastated by floods
caused by the Garza having overflowed its banks, and "by reason of this
deluge," says Capriolo, "all things were subverted."^ Pavia had been for
centuries one of the most notable cities in Italy ; a royal residence in the days
of Theodoric, a centre of culture and learning in the Middle Ages (for by an
edict of King Lothaire of 825 all the youth of Lombardy was summoned
to attend her schools^), and later one of the busiest emporiums of trade and
commerce in the land, by reason of her situation on the Ticino and near the
River Po, the two great commercial waterways of Lombardy. From the
time when Galeazzo Visconti II, the founder of the University, chose the city
as his residence and declared
his intention of building a palace which should
surpass in splendour all other buildings of its kind in Italy, the art life of
Pavia— first quickened into being by extraneous influences—developed
rapidly. In this building, which Petrarch called the most princely of all
modern edifices,^ and Corio, the first palace in the world, painters found continuous
employment from 1366 onwards, and there, according to the Anonimo,
who quotes from Cesare Cesariano, Pisanello painted a series of magnificent
frescoes, "so smooth and brilliant that one still can see one's face in them."*
The Visconti, though historians have branded them as brutal tyrants and
monsters of cruelty, exercised a most beneficent influence over every branch
of art. The building of the Cathedral of Milan and of the Certosa of Pavia,^
the restoration and embellishment of the ducal palaces and other buildings in
both these cities, gave employment to an innumerable throng of craftsmen ;
and the rulers of the Duchy, by their powerful patronage, succeeded in gathering
round them the most distinguished among the architects, sculptors, and
painters of the day.
Their Court came to be regarded as the most brilliant in
'
Cremona had since 1419 belonged to the Duchy of Milan, having been bought by
Filippo Maria Visconti from Gabrino Fondulo for 35,000 ducats (Verri, II, 42).
'^
" Per lo qual diluvio ando ogni cosa sotto sopra " {op. cit., p. 230).
^ See Vidari, Frammenti, etc., I, 238, 239.
* Lettere Senili, Lib. V, lettera i, 264.
* " Tanto Usee e tanto resplendent! che fin oggidi si pol specchiar in esse"
(Anonimo, ed. Frizzoni, p. 121).
° Begun respectively in 1386 and 1396.