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

36 VINCENZO FOPPA
certainly have elapsed before the pictorial decoration of the chapel was
undertaken, and then, out of compliment to the Dominicans, who had
stipulated that the tomb of the founder of their order at Pavia was to be
scrupulously respected, the University employed Foppa to represent upon the
walls episodes from his life. It was not until 1509 that they added an
altarpiece in which their own patron saint, Catherine of Alexandria, was
represented.'
Spelta, writing in 1597," mentions paintings representing miracles of
the saint near his tomb in the chapel, but no subsequent writer speaks
of them.
We have had the good fortune, however, to discover some interesting
particulars relating to the work among the MS. notes of a Dominican of
S. Tommaso at Pavia, who, towards the close of the eighteenth century,
was engaged in collecting material bearing upon the cultus of the Beato
Isnardo.^ Among other proofs of the devotion paid to the saint he mentions :
"two pictures hanging on the wall on either side of the High Altar in
the Church of S. Tommaso, representing respectively the
B. Isnardo visiting
the prisons to console and admonish the captives, and the saint standing on
the threshold of the ancient Pavian Monastery of S. Maria di Nazaret praying
for the blessing of the Almighty and the inspiration of the Spirit on behalf of
a brother who was about to set forth to preach."^
That these compositions dealing with the life and acts of the B. Isnardo
were connected with Foppa's frescoes and in what degree, we also gather from
the notes of this anonymous Dominican writer, who states that the canvases
"were not products of the artist's imagination, but were very faithful copies of
an early original painting existing in the Chapel of St. Catherine on the right
of the High Altar." ^ They were therefore copies of Foppa's frescoes in this
chapel, paintings which were unfortunately destroyed, to the deep regret of the
Dominicans, who thereby suffered the loss of a most important document
1 Rilucenti, Annali del Convento di S. Tommaso, p. 47
; Pio, op, cit., Lib. II, 397 ;
Maiocchi, op. cit., 65.
2 Historia delle Vite di tuttii Vescovi di Pavia, p. 326.
' These papers are preserved in the Archives of the Cathedral at Pavia : Arch,
della Fabbriceria, Cartella 24, No. 22.
* " Tabulas pictas duas qu£e parietibus sacrarii suspense Isnardum exhibent vel
carceres visitantem (B.
Isnardus solatur carcere detentos, according to the inscription)
vel in aditu monasterii cui praeerat fratri benedicentem (B. Isnardus evangelizantibus
S. Spiritus dona precatur)."
* " Non ad libitum pictoris fuisse confectas, sed fideliter excerptas tamquam ex
original! pictura vetustiore sacelli ad dexteram arae maximae ecclesiae S. Thomas
existentis atque S. Catharinae V. et M. dicati . . . huius aram utrinque ambiebant
muri pictce imagines B. confessoris binas divina operantis " {loc. cit).