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

Chap. II. THE MEDICI BANK 43
latter nowhere states who the architect was ;
throughout his Trattato the
name of Michelozzo is only once mentioned/ and then not in connection with
any special work.^ Towards the end of his Trattato Filaretc devotes a whole
chapter to describing the splendours of the palace with its
terra-cotta decorations,
its loggie and marble doors,' and its great halls, more beautiful than
anything in Milan, with ceilings like those in the Florentine palace of the
Medici. Though we have no proof, as already stated, that Filarete himself
had anything to do with the building as architect, he tells us that Portinari
took counsel with him about the paintings. Filarete's Trattato was begun c.
1460 and finished in the spring of 1464,^ and his account of the Medici Bank
is contained in the last chapter. When he wrote many of the frescoes were
still under discussion, but some portion of Foppa's work had already been
' Oett., Trait., p. 212.
2
The fa9ade, of which Filarete has left a sketch in his Trattato (repr. Oett., 68i,
and Munoz, pi. i6 ; see also the small reproduction in our illustration, p. 54), shows no
connection with Michelozzo's Palace of the Medici at Florence, but is on the whole more
nearly related to the work of Filarete himself in the Milanese hospital, though there is
no proof that he ever had any share in the building as architect. It is not unlikely that
Cosimo would have wished to employ a Florentine, but Michelozzo was by no means
the only one available for the purpose in North Italy. At the same time, knowing as
we do with what jealousy Filarete had been regarded when he first entered the service of
Francesco Sforza (see his letters of December 20, 1451, and June, 1453, published
respectively in It Buonarroti, 1869, p. 82, and in // Castello di Milano, Beltrami, 1894,
p. 142), it is more probable that Cosimo, who wished above all things to please the
Duke, would have employed either a North Italian or at least a Florentine who, like
Filarete or Benedetto Ferrini, had for some time been engaged at the Milanese Court.
Meyer's conclusion {op. cit., p. 109) is that Michelozzo may have sent designs for the
work which was executed by Lombard sculptors and decorators, among whom should,
he thinks, be included the young Amadeo. There is undoubtedly a close connection
between the fragments of decorative work in terra-cotta from the Medici Bank preserved
in the Castello Museum and Amadeo's work in S. Lanfranco at Pavia and elsewhere,
but it is difficult to believe that he could have taken any prominent part in the
decoration of the Bank if it was actually finished in 1460, at which date he would have
more than thirteen.
been little
* The principal door of the palace, which is described by Filarete and all later
writers, and with which Michelozzo is in part credited, was sold to a Milanese dealer in
1863 and was acquired by the Archaeological Museum in the following year (see Perseveranza,
June 17, 1863, and January 27 and June 17, 1864). It has now found a
permanent home in the Sculpture Museum of the Castello at Milan. A small reproduction
is seen in our illustration, p. 54; reproduced also by Meyer, op. cit., p. 103; Malaguzzi,
Amadeo, p. 20 ; and by many other writers.
*
Oett. Fil., 40 and 67, note 71 ; Vasari (ed. 1568, Vol. II, p. 348) says Filarete dedicated
his Trattato to Piero di Cosimo de' Medici in 1464 ; it was presented to him in
the following year, Kallab, op. cit., p. 344. See also Munoz, op. cit., p. 236.