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

42 VINCENZO FOPPA
being a stone ball with the date 1460 preserved in one of the courtyards.'
Vico's works were presumably replaced by later versions devoid of all
original
character, in which the features of the Duke and Duchess, which must have
been so well known to all fifteenth century painters, have been travestied by
the copyist.^
The fact that it was customary to exhibit these pictures under the colonnade
on either side of the main entrance may account for their having been
confused in later times with Foppa's frescoes. The outer colonnade, which,
as we learn from Latuada, was originally closed by iron grilles, was eventually
walled up, in order to provide an increased number of wards ; but the
arches, beneath which ugly square windows were subsequently introduced,
are still distinctly traceable on the side looking to the street the present Via
deir Ospedale, and towards S. Nazzaro. Foppa's frescoes must certainly
have perished when this alteration took place even if they were still existing
at that time, which may be doubted, for the Milanese writers who so greatly
extol the building (Morigia, among others, says it had no equal in
Italy') never
mention the paintings.
Contemporaneously with his work in the hospital, Foppa probably executed
the frescoes in the Medici Bank at Milan, which must have added
greatly to his reputation.
The house situated in the narrow Via de' Bossi was purchased from the
brothers of that name by Francesco Sforza and given by him on August 10,
1455,* to Cosimo de' Medici, who placed there, as his representative to watch
over his interests in North Italy, Pigello, son of Odoardo di Folco Portinari,
a member of the illustrious Florentine family.
Cosimo, to show his appreciation
of Francesco Sforza's gift, had the palace rebuilt and decorated on a
most magnificent scale. On the authority of Vasari,^ Michelozzo is credited
with having been the architect ; but Vasari's statement does not bear investigation,
for he only refers to Filarete as the source of his information, and the
1 This chapel stood in the centre of the " Montagna," the site of which is now
occupied by the Cortile Maggiore, erected in the seventeenth century by the architects
Pessina and Ricchini.
-'
Count Malaguzzi also considers that these canvases are " evidently copies of lost
fifteenth century works" {Ital. Forsch., etc., p. 94). Signor Munoz, on the other hand
{op. cit., p. 210 note), maintains that they are the original tempera paintings, though he
admits that the process of restoration to which they have been subjected has obliterated
all trace of fifteenth century colour, and, we must add, has entirely destroyed all original
character. The pictures are reproduced by both these writers.
p. 679.
^ See Sommario delle cose mirabili della Cittii di Milano, pp. 34 and 68.
* Casati, in Arch. Star. Lomb., 1885, 584, and Oettingen, Trattato, Bk. XXV,
^ II, 345, ed. 1568.