The taking of Brescia

The sculpture
depicting the taking of Brescia is part of the sculptures from the funerary
monument to Gaston de Foix, a masterpiece by Agostino Busti known as Bambaia,
now exhibited in the Museum's Sala degli Scarlioni. The tomb was to be erected
in honour of French military leader Gaston de Foix, who died in Ravenna in
1512, and it was intended for Santa Marta, a favourite church of the French,
where the hero’s body had been taken after the funeral. From documentation
regarding the Monument, we know that it must have been a very demanding task,
and it was estimated to require at least four to six years of work. The
commission probably came directly from the King and the confirmation for this
comes precisely from Bambaia who, in his will written on April 25th 1528,
speaks of credit outstanding with the "Most Christian King of France"
(Francois I) for the tomb he made but had not yet finished. Thanks to these
words of Bambaia we can say with certainty that the monument remained
unfinished, as also confirmed by Vasari in his "Lives". In the church
of Santa Marta the sculptures were found without any connection between them:
standing female characters, seated male figures (as in the case of the taking
of Brescia), small pillars of various sizes decorated with trophies, narrative
reliefs with scenes of war, all of masterly execution and piled on the ground,
simply because the piece had never been assembled. For this reason, putting
together the twenty sculptures destined for the funeral monument is very
problematic, given that there is no certain information on how the tomb was to
have appeared in its final version.

If we look at the sculptures that have survived - the recumbent effigy, the
sequence of the apostles, the female figures and the reliefs that narrate the
deceased’s life - we can see the element of political manifesto of the tomb,
aimed at celebrating the deeds and the earthly glory of the young marshal of
France. The sculptural language of Bambaia marries the knowledge of classical
art acquired in his time in Rome with the great lesson of Leonardo,
recognisable in the eloquent gestures and expressiveness of his characters