Ambrogio da Predis (1455?–1506?), who worked as Leonardo’s assistant on the National Gallery’s replica of the Virgin of the Rocks in this collection (No. 1599), is not represented here. Another assistant and pupil of Leonardo was Bernardino de’ Conti. As we have seen, he may be the painter of the Profile Portrait of a Lady—or La Belle Ferronnière (No. 1605)—which is officially regarded as being of the “School of Leonardo.” A similar attribution is also given to the Madonna of the Scales (No. 1604), which should rather be assigned to Cesare da Sesto (1477–1523), a sickly and insipid imitator of the master. Another of Leonardo’s imitators was Marco d’Oggiono (1470?–1540). His copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper (No. 1603) is perhaps of greater interest than his own Holy Family (No. 1382) and Madonna and Child (No. 1382a).
One of the more original of the imitators of Leonardo was Boltraffio (1467–1516), whose Madonna of the Casio Family (No. 1169) was formerly in the Milan Gallery, where any picture containing a portrait of that poet might reasonably have been expected to remain. This picture is the painter’s masterpiece.
THE SCHOOL OF LOMBARDY
AFTER the activity which had prevailed in Milan during the last half of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the sixteenth century, art in Lombardy rapidly deteriorated. Before the decline had passed into decadence Pier Francesco Sacchi (fl. 1512–1527) painted at Pavia his Four Doctors of the Church (No. 1488), which is signed in the cartouche
PETRI FRANCISCI
SACHI DE PAPIA
OPUS 1516.
Each of the Doctors duplicates the part of an Evangelist. On the left St. Augustine, with his book inscribed “De Civitate Dei,” is also shown as St. John with his eagle; St. Gregory, with his dove, is also St. Luke with his bull; St. Jerome, with his cardinal’s hat, is also St. Matthew with his angel; while St. Ambrose, with his scourge, is also St. Mark with his lion. The scourge held by St. Ambrose, a patron saint of Milan, alludes to his refusing the Emperor Theodosius admittance into the church at Milan in consequence of the general massacre he ordered with a view to subduing a sedition at Thessalonica in A.D. 390.
Another early-sixteenth-century Pavian painter was Bartolommeo Bononi, whose only known picture is the Madonna and Child, St. Francis, a Bishop, and a Monk (No. 1174). It is signed
OPUS BARTOLOMEI BONONII CIVIS PAPIENSIS 1501.
on the stump of the tree in the centre foreground.