FOOTMAN, a name given among articles of furniture to a metal stand, usually of polished steel or brass, and either oblong or oval in shape, for keeping plates and dishes hot before a dining-room fire. In the days before the general use of hot-water dishes the footman possessed definite utility, but although it is still in occasional use, it is now chiefly regarded as an ornament. It was especially common in the hardware counties of England, where it is still frequently seen; the simple conventionality of its form is not inelegant.
FOOTSCRAY, a city of Bourke county, Victoria, Australia, on the Saltwater river, 4 m. W. of and suburban to Melbourne. Pop. (1901) 18,301. The city has large bluestone quarries from which most of the building stones in Melbourne and the neighbourhood is obtained; it is also an important manufacturing centre, with numerous sugar-mills, jute factories, soap works, woollen-mills, foundries, chemical works and many other minor industries.
FOOT-STALL, a word supposed to be a literal translation of pièdestal, or pedestal, the lower part of a pier in architecture (see [Base]).
FOPPA, VINCENZO, Italian painter, was born near Brescia. The dates of his birth and death used to be given as 1400 and 1492; but there is now good reason for substituting 1427 and 1515. He settled in Pavia towards 1456, and was the head of a Lombard school of painting which subsisted up to the advent of Leonardo da Vinci. In 1489 he returned to Brescia. His contemporary reputation was very considerable, his merit in perspective and foreshortening being recognized especially. Among his noted works are a fresco in the Brera Gallery, Milan, the “Martyrdom of St Sebastian”; and a “Crucifixion” in the Carrara gallery, Bergamo, executed in 1455. He worked much in Milan and in Genoa, but many of his paintings are now lost.
See C.J. Ffoulkes and R. Maiocchi, Vincenzo Foppa (1910).