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

28 VINCENZO FOPPA
The picture, a very mediocre performance, is now in the Turin Gallery, and
shows that, like Foppa, this Brescian painter must have learned his art in
Venetia, though in the school, not of Jacopo Bellini, but of the painters of
Murano. It is now practically certain that the "Paolo da Brescia" of the
Mortara altarpiece is identical with the "Paolo Calino " who appears with
Foppa in the house of a native of Mortara at Pavia, and that both are also
identical with the Brescian painter Paolo Caylina.'
We can point to no work
by Foppa of these years except the Bergamo Crucifixion, and possibly the lost
frescoes in the Castello at Pavia and in the Arengo at Milan, though there
can be no doubt that he executed other paintings in both these cities.
In 1460 plague raged in Italy, and Pavia, in spite of its splendid air and
healthy situation, was not exempt from the scourge ; it is possible that from
this and other causes, employment for painters may have been slack at this
time. At Milan the hospital and other buildings, for the decoration of which
the best artists would have been required, were not yet sufficiently advanced
to admit of the execution of frescoes, hence Vincenzo may have been
forced to seek for work elsewhere, and he turned his thoughts to Genoa.
Liguria, though singularly devoid of local painters of any merit, was the
favourite resort of artists from other parts of Italy.
In the fourteenth century
the Tuscan element predominated ; but in the fifteenth the influx was from
the north, more especially from Milan and Pavia, for during the space of
fifteen years (from 142 1 to 1436) Genoa had been subject to Filippo Maria
" PAVLVS brisien[s]is pinxit mcccclviii " (see Tapparelli d' Azeglio, La R. Galleria di
Torino, IV, p. 195 ; Rassegna d'Arte, 1902, and Anonim. Ticinens. ed. Maiocchi and
Quintavalle, 1903, p. 22, note 6).
'
We may take this opportunity of emphatically protesting against the attribution
to Paolo Caylina of the beautiful Annunciation in S. Alessandro at Brescia.
are now agreed that it
Most critics
is probably by Jacopo Bellini, though some guide-books, on the
authority of certain writers, continue to ascribe it to Paolo da Brescia. The figures of
the angel and of the Madonna are modernized by repainting (see Capilupi, Sulla
tavola . . . nella chiesa di S. Aless., etc.), but the predella is still in fairly good condition,
and here the close connection with Jacopo Bellini's drawings is at once apparent.
On the other hand, we may claim as a late work by Paolo Caylina the panel for the
Shoemakers' Guild in the fourth chapel on the right in S. Nazzaro at Brescia, which
bears considerable resemblance to the altarpiece at Turin, though it is evidently some
fifteen years later in date. It represents the Madonna and Child enthroned with two angel
musicians on the arms of the throne ;
on the right a bishop, on the left St. Laurence.
The picture is in a terribly injured state and has been unmercifully repainted, but in
the types of the Madonna and of the saints, in the drawing and pose of the Child and
of the angels, in the treatment of the draperies and character of the hands, the manner
of Paolo Caylina is apparent. It is evident from these two works that he was a painter
of very limited ability, and that he could have had little intercourse with his brotherin-law
Vincenzo Foppa, probably because most of his life was spent at Brescia.