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

24 VINCENZO FOPPA
years, namely: Bonifazio Bembo/ Pietro Marchesi, Stefano Fedeli, Stefano
de Magistris, Pietro da Corte, Vincenzo Peregallo, Leonardo Ponzano, etc.,
a not inconsiderable number therefore of painters of note, and doubtless there
were many more of whom we know nothing.^ Yet, in spite of the fact that
Foppa, when he settled in the Duchy of Milan, found so large a company
of painters already in possession of the field,
we have no hesitation in claiming
for him the honour of having been the true and actual founder of the
early Lombard school in the sense that he radically changed its nature
and endowed it with a new and potent vitality. There is not the slightest
doubt that in a few years' time his influence made itself powerfully felt
throughout the schools of Milan and Pavia, that his contemporaries, even
those who were senior to him in years, were unable to hold aloof from
the vigorous methods of the new art which was springing up in their midst,
planted there by a stranger from the Venetian province of Brescia, an art
which gained ground so rapidly that in the brief space of three or four years
we find Vincenzo Foppa surpassing all his fellow-workers, taking his place as
the acknowledged head of the school, and, as time went on, training in
his bottega pupils whose works testify to their direct descent from him, as will
be seen later.
Of Foppa's first works at Pavia we have no record, but in all probability he
was one of those who obtained employment in the Castello, where Bembo,
Costantino da Vaprio, and Zanetto Bugati—all painters with whom we find
him associated at a later date, were engaged in executing frescoes. Bembo,
who may, as already observed, have been instrumental in persuading Foppa
to try his fortunes at Pavia, appears to have been one of the most influential
among the painters there. In December, 1456, he had been summoned from
Cremona, and in February, 1457, was lodged in the castle with his assistants,
and by order of the Duke every facility was aflforded him for carrying on his work
there ;
in the following year, when engaged in painting one of the rooms, he
was commanded to take other artists to assist him ^ in order that the work
might be completed without delay, and it is by no means improbable that one
of these painters may have been Foppa. The frescoes of the great
hall, which remained intact until Lautrec's bombardment in 1527, and were
* That Bembo had already been in the service of the Milanese Court as far back as
1447 in the reign of Filippo Maria Visconti we know, from a letter published by Caffi
in the Arch. Star. Lombardo, Anno V, p. 82.
^ We have included in this list only such artists as we know to have been employed
as fresco painters and at the Court of the Sforza, and who therefore must have stood in
the first rank of the school.
' Archivio Stor. Lombardo, 1876, 546, 552, 553; Nagler, Kiinstlerlexicon, III, ed.
1885 ; Malaguzzi, op. cit., 99, 100, etc.