Vincenzo Foppa was an Italian painter from the Renaissance period. While few of his works survive, he was an esteemed and influential painter during his time and is considered the preeminent leader of the Early Lombard School. He spent his career working for the Sforza family, Dukes of Milan, in Pavia, as well as various other patrons throughout Lombardy and Liguria. He lived and worked in his native Brescia during his later years.
Virgin of the Book c. 1475, Milan
Crucifixion (1456)
Boy Reading Cicero (c. 1464), Wallace Collection, London
Virgin and Child with Saints (c. 1476)
Bonifacio Bembo, also called Bonfazio Bembo, or simply just Bembo, was a north Italian Renaissance artist born in Brescia in 1420. He was the son of Giovanni Bembo, an active painter during his time. As a painter, Bonifacio mainly worked in Cremona. He was patronized by the Sforza family and was commissioned to paint portraits of Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti. Scholars have credited him as the artist who produced a tarot card deck for the Visconti-Sforza families, now held in the Cary Collection of Playing Cards at Yale University. In the past century, art historians have begun to question the authenticity of his works, believing his only two secure works to be the portraits of Francesco and Bianca Maria Sforza. He is believed to have died sometime before 1482.
Portrait of Francesco Sforza. ca. 1460. Tempera on panel, 40 x 31 cm. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.
The Popess tarot card from the Visconti-Sforza deck drawn and painted by Bonifacio Bembo.
Pavia, Collegio Castiglioni Brugnatelli, frescoes in the chapel, 1475.