_Ambrogio Borgognone_ (Lombard: about 1455-1523).
Ambrogio Borgognone, called also Ambrogio da Fossano, the
latter being the name of a town in Piedmont, was born at Milan.
"It may have been Ambrogio's grandfather or great-grandfather
who left the little Piedmontese town to settle at Milan; one of
his ancestors had probably lived some time in Flanders (then
called Borgogna by the Italians) and had thus received the
surname of Borgognone. Ambrogio, who holds the same central
place in the Milanese School of painting as Perugino in that
of Perugia, and Francia in that of Bologna, was, according to
my view, a pupil of Vincenzo Foppa the elder, and the real
master of Bernardino Luini, the Raphael of the Milanese school.
He remains in all his works a thorough Lombard" (Morelli's
_German Galleries_, p. 419). The tenderness of feeling in
this "Perugino of the Lombard School" is very marked. "The
presentment of divine or holy personages, in calm serenity
or in resigned suffering, accorded best," says Burton, "with
his temperament. Even his colouring partakes of the pervading
sentiment; the grey pallor of his heads is only modified, now
and then, by the reddened eyelids of sorrow. In the Accademia
at Pavia is a small picture, representing Christ bearing his
cross, and followed by some Carthusian Brothers, which in
simple pathos and deep religious meaning is perhaps without
its equal in art." Ambrogio was distinguished as an architect
no less than as a painter, and was employed on the façade of
the Certosa of Pavia--a view of which building figures in the
background of a picture by Ambrogio in our gallery (1410).
For St. Catherine of Alexandria, see under 693; for St. Catherine of
Siena, under 249. Each of them was proclaimed the spouse of Christ for
the love they bore him. And Borgognone here places them on either side
of the Madonna's throne. "Their names are inscribed on the haloes which
surround their heads. The Madonna--an exquisite example of the earlier
and purer Lombard type--sits enthroned on a raised seat, which may be
compared with that of the Blenheim Madonna and of many other Virgins in
our collection. The Child, erect on her knees and short-coated after
the earlier wont, is in the very act of placing the ring of His mystic
wedding on the timorous hand of St. Catherine of Alexandria. The Saint
herself, as the earlier and more famous of the two, stands at the right
hand of Our Lady. In her left she grasps the palm of martyrdom. As
Princess of Egypt the meek and beautiful lady wears a regal crown. Her
long wavy hair, of the type which we usually regard as Leonardesque,
but which Leonardo really acquired in Lombardy, is characteristic of
this saint, even in pictures of other schools (_cf._ the Umbrian,
No. 646). At her feet lies the wheel, with its conventional hooked
spikes, which was the instrument of her torture. On the Madonna's left
stands St. Catherine of Siena in her Dominican robes. Her face is pure
saintliness--a marvel of beauty; her left hand holds the ascetic white
lily of the Dominican order; her right the Madonna takes with a gentle,
and one might almost say consolatory gesture. Our Lady seems to comfort
her for her less favoured position; and if you look close you will see
that the infant Saviour holds in His left hand a second ring, which He
extends with childish grace towards the Nun of Siena" (Grant Allen in
_Pall Mall Magazine_, June-December 1895, p. 66).