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