_The Basilica of St. Ambrogio_
“Regina delle chiese lombarde.”
In a quiet plebeian quarter, remote from the bustle of the city,
surrounded by a wide piazza and a pleasant grove of lime-trees, stands
the old basilica of St. Ambrogio. It is reached in a few minutes from
the Duomo by the S. Vittore tram. This church, architecturally and
historically, ranks first among all in Milan. The Duomo, foreign in
material and bastard in style, cannot compare in interest with this
grand product of the Lombard soil and the Lombard spirit. The story of
St. Ambrogio reaches back through the long centuries of Milan’s modern
and mediæval life to the time of the saintly Doctor himself. It was in
386 that St. Ambrose founded it beside the already existing basilica
Faustæ. Here he buried, in the place which he had prepared for himself,
the bodies of the martyr saints Protasio and Gervasio, whose
resting-place had been revealed to him just at the crisis of his
struggle with the Empress. _Two men of marvellous stature such as the
first age bore_, so he describes the bodies in a letter to his sister
Marcellina. _We carried them, as the evening was falling, to the
basilica Faustæ.... The following day we removed them to the church
which they call Ambrosianam._ They were laid beneath the altar, _where
Christ is offered up_, and Ambrose commanded that when his own time came
he should be buried in all humility beside them upon their left hand.
The church was dedicated to the martyrs. Nevertheless, it continued to
be called the Basilica Ambrosiana according to the fashion of that day,
when the churches were called after their founders, as for example the
Basilica Faustæ, otherwise S. Vittore in Cielo d’Oro, the Basilica
Porciana, also dedicated to S. Vittore, and the Basilica Paulina, or SS.
Felix and Nabor. To later centuries it has become unalterably Sant
Ambrogio.
Being in a peculiar sense the church of the patron saint and protector
of the Milanese people, the basilica held from the first a very
prominent place in the life of the Ambrosian city. Here the Primates
gathered their suffragans to those synods and provincial councils, in
which in the days of ecclesiastical rule the affairs of North Italy were
decided. The foundation of a monastery of the powerful Benedictine Order
in connection with the church, in 783, added to its importance. The
archbishops of the reviving See of Milan, in the ninth century, restored
it and bestowed upon it the utmost honour and reverence, endowing it
with great riches. Here Otho the Great was crowned King of Italy by
Archbishop Walperto in 961, and from that time, whenever a coronation
took place in Milan, it was performed in St. Ambrogio. Perhaps the
curious privilege which the city enjoyed, of keeping all sovereigns
excluded from its precincts, was the reason why the Cathedral church was
never chosen for the ceremony. In 1186, Frederick Barbarossa was present
here when with immense splendour Henry of Suabia wedded Constance of
Sicily, the Constance who is moon-arrested in Dante’s _Paradise_,
because of her supposed inconstancy to monastic vows, though the old
tale of her being dragged from a convent to marry the Emperor’s son has
been proved a fable.
During the factious age of liberty St. Ambrogio was the church in which
the popular party gathered, to seek the sanction and protection of the
patron saint and to discuss their affairs, being shut out from the Duomo
by the Archbishop and the aristocratic party. Here the short-lived
reconciliation of 1258, called the _Pace di St. Ambrogio_, was completed
and sworn to before the Altar with great solemnity by the
representatives of both factions.
In St. Ambrogio Henry of Luxemburg, the looked-for peacemaker, was
crowned in 1311, with his consort, Margaret of Brabant, in the presence
of all the great nobles of Italy and characters conspicuous in the
history of the time. A strange and somewhat ominous circumstance of this
occasion was that the crown always used for the coronation of the Kings
of Italy—which had become, though only shortly before this time, known
as the Iron Crown—was missing. With the rest of the treasure of the
Cathedral of Monza—where it was kept then, as to-day—it had been pawned
by the Torriani.[8] So a new iron crown, in the form of a laurel wreath,
was forged to encircle the brow of Henry VII. The newly anointed monarch
created two hundred knights in the church, the first upon whom he laid
his sword being Matteo Visconte. From this time the ceremony of
knighting was customarily performed in St. Ambrogio, and later on those
who received the dignity there were called the Knights of St. Ambrogio.
Footnote 8:
The treasure was recovered later from Avignon by Matteo Visconte.
It was in St. Ambrogio that Gian Galeazzo Visconte, newly created Duke
of Milan, knelt before the altar while the Archbishop of Milan and a
splendid array of prelates chanted hymns and offices in celebration of
his elevation to the ducal dignity, in the presence of princes and
ambassadors from all the States of Italy and Europe. Here, in 1477, the
young Republicans who had sworn to avenge the wrongs of their city upon
the tyrant Galeazzo Maria Sforza, bowed themselves before the image of
the Saint, patron of the Milanese liberties, and besought his blessing
upon their enterprise. In the sixteenth century St. Ambrogio was the
goal of the pathetic penitential processions which used to wind their
way from the Duomo day after day during the visitations of the plague
and the persecutions by the Spaniards.
The Basilica as we see it now shows no trace, it need hardly be said, of
the church which Ambrose himself built. But it still contains his bones.
An interesting proof of his actual burial there beside the two martyrs,
according to his directions, was the discovery, in 1864, beneath the
High Altar, of two cavities of unequal size, the larger in the middle,
the smaller on its left hand, evidently burial-places. There were no
bodies in them, but the remains of the three saints were found in a
sepulchre of porphyry above the cavities. It was known that they had
been removed and laid in one tomb together by Archbishop Angilberto in
the ninth century, probably at the time when the floor of the sanctuary
was raised and the golden altar set up. The church appears to have been
completely rebuilt at this time by Angilberto (824-859) and Ansperto
(868-881), after the instalment of the Benedictines, in order to suit it
to the requirements of monastic ritual. Angilberto had the main part
built, it is supposed, and Ansperto added the atrium—_Atria vicinas
struxit et ante fores_,—as is recorded in the lengthy epitaph of the
said prelate inscribed above his tomb on the south side of the nave.
But the noble building of to-day, with its grand forecourt, or atrium,
is almost certainly not the ninth century church of Angilberto and
Ansperto, but a reconstruction on the same lines in the eleventh or
early twelfth century. The date of St. Ambrogio has been a much-disputed
point, and some authorities still cherish the theory that it is in the
main the ninth century building, and as such, the prototype of all the
many churches of the Romanesque style scattered throughout Europe. But
the advanced system of vaulting, and the compound form of the pillars,
as seen in St. Ambrogio, are said not to appear in other Italian
churches until a good deal later than the ninth century—later, in fact,
than in more northern countries. If the Basilica be of this early date,
it must have remained for two hundred years a solitary example of a
splendid style of architecture which had arrived at completeness without
leaving any traces of preliminary stages. There are many tenth and
eleventh century churches, however, which show what would naturally seem
the early and undeveloped stages of the style, which is in favour of the
belief held by most of the writers on the subject, that St. Ambrogio
follows rather than precedes them in date, and stands at the zenith and
not at the dawn of Romanesque architecture. The style of most of the
decorative sculpture on the building also points to a later origin.[9]
Footnote 9:
The exponents of the ninth century theory are Dartein, Landriani, and
Mongeri, among others, and more recently, Luca Beltrami; and of the
theory of a later origin, Kügler, Viollet-le-Duc, Stielh, Cattaneo,
Adolfo Venturi, etc.
There is no actual record, it is true, of a restoration in the eleventh
or twelfth century, but the patriotism and fervour of vitality which
animated the Milanese in that epoch, and brought them into conflict with
Barbarossa, may well have induced them to rebuild and beautify this
church, which, being the resting-place of their Patron, was to them as
the sanctuary of their liberties. Italian enthusiasm has always
memorialised itself in brick and stone, and, moreover, in the twelfth
century architecture was the only art in which they could fully express
themselves. Not only in Milan, but throughout Lombardy, the churches of
this period are a grand and enduring testimony to the great era of the
Italian Communes, and in St. Ambrogio, queen if not mother of them
all,[10] surely we have before us the noblest artistic embodiment of the
spirit which produced the Lombard League.
Footnote 10:
_Madre e regina delle chiese lombarde_—Dartein.
The outward form of the church—the large Romanesque style—is in keeping
with that great patriotic thought and resolve. It is essentially of the
soil. The grand curves of the arches, the massive pillars, the sense of
space and freedom seem the proper expression of the mediæval Lombard
character, in their union of Latin breadth and clearness with the
picturesque ruggedness, and the rich effects of light and shade of
Northern building. Above all, the material—brick and stone, that
fortunate combination which produces such glory and enchantment of
colour—is peculiarly Lombard. The effect of it in St. Ambrogio is most
beautiful and satisfying. Even the newness of much of the brick at the
present time—crude evidence of restoration—cannot destroy the charm.
[Illustration: SIDE AISLE OF ATRIUM, ST. AMBROGIO.]
[Illustration:
CAPITAL IN ATRIUM OF
ST. AMBROGIO.
]
The atrium or forecourt is surrounded on three sides by arcades
supported on massive pillars. It is rather later in date than the façade
of the church, which rises up in a wide gable, pierced with lofty
round-headed openings above the shadow of the narthex or portico,
triple-arched, which forms the eastern side of the atrium. On either
hand of the church rises a campanile of characteristic Lombard type. The
lower one is the Monks’ Tower, and dates from the eighth or ninth
century. It is probably the first thing which the Benedictines built on
entering into possession of the church in 783, bells being a necessity
of the monastic ritual. The tall tower on the left, which, with its
ornamental arcading and delicate ribs of brick and stone, shows an
advance of some centuries on the simplicity of the older one, was built
in 1128 by Archbishop Anselmo for the Canons, to vindicate the ancient
rights of these, the original servants and custodians of the basilica,
against the encroaching monks, who are said to have pulled down the
pre-existing belfry of the secular priests. The struggles between these
two bodies of secular and regular clergy, established side by side and
sharing the privilege of serving the church, were very fierce and
continuous through the Middle Ages. The monks are long gone now, and the
Canons remain in peaceful possession of the altars and of the quiet
courts and shrunken cloisters of the old place. Both towers have been
restored in recent times. The atrium and façade have also been restored,
but show more vestiges of the original work. In the fantastic sculptured
imagery which ornaments the capitals of the great columns, in the
curling foliage patterns of the friezes on archivolts and architraves,
in the endless knots and intricate web of the ribbed stems upon the
lintels and jambs and columns of the great middle doorway, in the
grotesque beasts and human creatures which course up pillars, or writhe
round capitals, we see the hand of the twelfth century craftsman still
shaping the stone into the forms of religious symbolism, but expressing
also his own satiric and pessimistic views of life, of nature ever at
war with itself, and at the same time beginning to subordinate spiritual
ideas to a desire for decorative effect. The attempts seen here at
representing human figures are still of the rudest and most primitive,
as for example the figure—perhaps Salome—dancing, while another plays
the lyre, on a capital to the left of the middle door, the Adam and Eve
(?) on either side of the Tree on one of the middle capitals of the
narthex, the huntsman standing triumphant above a crowd of horned
beasts—symbolic of the victory of the human over the animal nature. But
many of the capitals are purely fanciful and decorative; the grotesque
creatures writhe into graceful and symmetric designs, and that sort of
flat-ribbed cord that appears so constantly, and in its endless windings
is emblematic of eternity, is led into graceful curves and develops into
leaves and stems which, growing bolder and freer, become finally
beautiful foliage designs with masks and grotesques that seem to herald
the Renaissance. This more advanced decoration is probably thirteenth
century. Some fragments of the more archaic ornament, especially round
the middle doorway, which has the appearance of being pieced together in
places, seem to be survivals of an earlier existence of the church,
which were embodied in the twelfth century reconstruction—the symbolic
Lion of St. Mark, for example, and the Abbot’s Cross on a column on the
right hand, which belongs perhaps to the period of the rebuilding for
the monks. The name of _Adam Magister_, inscribed round a slender column
on the left of the door, upside down, is no doubt that of the architect
or sculptor of the present or some former phase of the building.
[Illustration:
CAPITAL IN ATRIUM OF
ST. AMBROGIO.
]
The walls of the atrium and round the doorways of the church show
everywhere traces of fresco paintings of various periods, from Byzantine
to Giottesque and the fifteenth century Lombard school, carefully
uncovered in recent times, but all hopelessly ruined. The two large
half-obliterated scenes in chiaroscuro on either side, at right angles
to the front wall of the church, have been attributed tentatively to the
little-known painter, Zenale. They represent the story of St. Ambrose
and St. Augustine. That on the right hand, which is the least spoilt,
shows three devotees kneeling before St. Ambrose, who are supposed to be
the three successive dukes, Francesco, Galeazzo Maria, and Gian Galeazzo
Sforza. On the left of the principal door, supported on four columns, is
the sarcophagus of the humanist, Pier Candido Decembrio (died 1477),
secretary and biographer of Duke Filippo Maria, and of his successor,
Francesco Sforza. It is a graceful Renaissance work, perhaps by the
Lombard sculptor, Tommaso da Cazzaniga,[11] and has bas-reliefs on the
front, showing the Virgin, with Decembrio kneeling before her protected
by St. Ambrose, and the journey of Tobias and the Angel, signifying the
soul’s journey into eternity. A very archaic bas-relief representing St.
Ambrose, with the triple-thonged scourge in his hand, is on the wall
beyond the left-hand door. The atrium is a museum of sculpture of many
periods. Here are monuments and shields of mediæval and Renaissance
days—tombstones cast out from this and neighbouring churches—the broken
original of the carven beasts over the right-hand door, and various
unburied fragments of that dead Roman world which underlies Milan.
Footnote 11:
See Malaguzzi Valeri, _G. A. Amadeo_, p. 295.
The great wooden door of the church, carved all over with small scenes,
and of very ancient origin, has lost its interest by a too complete
restoration. An unrestored fragment which is kept in the _Archivio
Capitolare_ has been pronounced to be of the time of Theodosius.
The interior of the basilica has the same noble effect of largeness,
dignity, and repose as the atrium. In the solemn obscurity and devout
silence one becomes aware of massive arches and deep vaulting, of great
spaces and dim, far-off recesses, of rich colour and gilding, of
grotesque forms and wreathing serpentine stems in the pallid stone of
capitals and pulpit and screen. The careful restoration of half a
century ago has repaired as much as possible the mishandlings which the
church suffered from the zeal of Carlo Borromeo, and again two hundred
years later, though the modern decoration of the cupola cannot be
admired. We now see the Lombard basilica in its twelfth century form,
with a great central nave of four bays, and side aisles with
_matronei_—galleries for the women—above them, an essential feature of a
Romanesque church. The nave is roofed with cross vaults springing from
enormous pilasters, except the last bay before the choir, which opens up
into a lofty cupola, whence a circumscribed light pours down from a
circle of windows high up, illuminating the beautiful canopy of the High
Altar beneath. This cupola, carried up to a height not in accord with
the rest of the church, is a thirteenth century restoration, following a
disastrous fall of the roof of this part in 1196.
[Illustration: CIBORIUM, ST. AMBROGIO.]
The eastern portion of the basilica, which has three apses, is a
survival of the ninth century building. The apses do not exactly
correspond in direction with the later built body of the church, as is
easily seen in looking up from the nave to the central apse. That they
belong to the church built for the monks, and not to an earlier
basilica, as their obvious priority to the rest of the building has led
the supporters of the ninth century theory to suppose, is shown by there
being three apses, and by the prolongation of the space in front of them
for the choir, to accommodate the monks, who needed a place apart from
the people for their special functions. In a very early basilica there
would be but one apse, and it would start from the nave. The sanctuary
is raised a few steps above the level of the nave, and in its midst,
conspicuous and alone as it should be, beneath the noble curves of arch
and cupola rises the four-sided canopy of the High Altar, upon four
antique columns of red porphyry, glowing with deep colour and gilding
against the rich darkness of the great mosaic in the tribune behind. The
decoration of the canopy is of stucco. Moulded upon the flat pediments
above the semicircular arches are gilded figures in relief against a
background of deep blue; on the front, facing into the nave, Christ
enthroned, giving the keys to Peter, and the law to Paul; on the back
St. Ambrogio, protected by an angel behind him, stands between SS.
Gervasio and Protasio, who present to him two kneeling Benedictine
monks, one of whom holds in his hands a model of the canopy, and is
thought to be Abbot Gaudenzio, appointed head of the monastery in 835;
on the left side Madonna, with the Dove of the Holy Spirit on her head,
is standing between two kneeling princesses, who lift their hands in
supplication to her; on the right is St. Ambrogio and two princes, who
also kneel and seem to beseech him. The friezes and bands of
ornamentation are exceedingly rich, and very beautiful in design. At the
corners are eagles, with their wings spread and fish between their
claws. The canopy is an early thirteenth century restoration of a
pre-existing one produced by Byzantine artists, probably in the time of
Archbishop Angilberto, and wrecked by the fall of the cupola in 1196,
little but the columns and the capitals surviving. The new work kept the
Byzantine character of the old—the rigidity of the figures, the
conventionalised draperies, the sacred symbols, though the spirit of a
later age is visible in a certain rude attempt to give life to the
heads.
Beneath the canopy the treasure which it was built to shelter still
stands, the famous golden altar of Archbishop Angilberto. This altar is
the largest and perhaps the most beautiful example known of the
goldsmith’s art in the Carlovingian period. It is kept enclosed in a
massive case, and a fee of five francs must be paid to the sacristan to
see it. On St. Ambrose’s Day only is it uncovered to public view. The
front of the altar is entirely faced with plates of fine gold divided
into panels by borders of exquisite mosaic of enamel, and gold filigree
work of delicate and various design, enriched with thickly-set gems,
rubies, opals, sapphires, topaz and turquoise, cats’-eyes and every sort
of strange-hued stone, some of great size, and edged with pearls. The
panels are filled with figures in relief. In the middle, in a panel of
oval form is Christ, with a jewelled halo, enthroned amid stars formed
of precious stones. Around Him are the four Evangelic Beasts and the
Apostles, three and three together. On either side are scenes from the
Gospel story. The Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost are sixteenth
century restorations, quite out of keeping with the archaic character of
the rest. The back and sides of the altar are of silver and of
silver-gilt. On each of the sides there is a Greek cross of gold
filigree set with gems and bordered with exquisite enamel, and around
are figures of saints and angels, SS. Ambrose, Simpliciano, Gervasio and
Protasio appearing on the right side, and on the left SS. Martin, Nabor,
Nazario and Magno, the three latter being Milanese martyrs in the time
of Diocletian and Decius. The back is divided into panels like the
front, but in the middle there are four medallions. The two upper ones
contain figures of the angels Michael and Gabriel. The two below are of
great interest, as evidence of the origin and antiquity of the altar. In
one is shown St. Ambrose crowning Angilberto, who has a halo of
rectangular form, which signifies that he was living at the time of the
representation; he offers a model of the altar to the Saint. The names
Sanctus Ambrosius and Dominus Angilbertus are inscribed beside them. In
the companion medallion we see Ambrose again, crowning _Volvinus
magister phaber_ (Master Volvinus the Smith), as the inscription
describes him, the German artificer whom the Archbishop charged to make
this altar, art at that time being far more advanced beyond the Alps
than in Italy. The panels contain scenes from the legend of St. Ambrose;
the Saint as a babe in the cradle attracting a swarm of bees by his
honeyed mouth; journeying on horseback into Liguria, where he was
prefect; flying at full gallop from Milan to avoid being Bishop, and
admonished by a voice from on high to return; being baptized and
ordained Bishop; celebrating Mass, while a cleric touches him on the
back, showing how, as the legend relates, sleep has fallen on him and he
is being transported in a vision to Tours, where in another panel he is
represented laying the dead St. Martin in his tomb; again he appears
preaching, inspired by an angel; treading beside the altar on the gouty
foot of a bystander and healing it; seeing Christ in a dream, who
announces to him his approaching death; offering his body to God as he
dies; lastly, his dead body is being carried to Heaven by angels. These
reliefs are very reminiscent of classic forms and have a surprising
grace and freedom for the period. The representations of St. Ambrose’s
story in particular are full of life and vigour, and show much beauty of
composition and modelling, though they betray the era of their origin in
certain awkwardnesses of proportion and grotesque attitudes. Here and
there cameos of exquisite and evidently antique workmanship are let into
the borders, and gems with Greek words cut in them; but perhaps the
greatest beauty of all is the enamel—just beginning at that time to be
used extensively in decorative art—and the delicate designs in which it
is composed.
This gorgeous jewelled work, flashing out beneath the splendour of the
canopy, seems to gather into a point all the glory of this rich
interior. From the choir, which is raised several steps above the
sanctuary, one can get a complete view of the mosaic decoration of the
apse, a grand and imposing composition, with a colossal figure of Christ
enthroned in the centre, lifting His hand in benediction, and on either
side of Him SS. Gervasio and Protasio, and the Archangels Michael and
Gabriel above. The names of the two martyrs are written beside them,
letter beneath letter. Under the central figure there are three
medallions; S. Satiro, brother of St. Ambrose, in the centre, and S.
Marcellina, their sister, and S. Candida to right and left. The sides of
the composition depict the story related by S. Gregory of Tours about
St. Ambrose and represented on the altar; how he fell into a trance as
he celebrated Mass and was rapt in spirit to Tours, where he performed
the burial rite over the body of S. Martin. This mosaic is of the
twelfth century, and though it follows the Byzantine style in
arrangement and general treatment, it shows a tendency to abandon the
old rigid conventions for the sake of more life and expression in the
attitudes and draperies of the figures, and so sacrifices something of
the decorative effect. The colour is very sombre, lacking the richness
and glow of the best mosaic.
There is a marble episcopal seat of the ninth century in the choir. The
stalls are very beautiful. Some are of the fourteenth century, as is
also the triple seat on the right hand of the altar; the other stalls
date from 1507. The designs carved upon them—trees and foliage, with
small figures of men and animals, a peasant gathering grapes, a
neglectful swineherd munching acorns, while the pig climbs the tree to
reach some for itself, a man and a bear facing each other with comical
hesitation beneath a tree, and other rustic scenes—are very graceful and
delicate, and show a Renaissance spirit of gaiety.
The richly sculptured pulpit carries us back again to the earlier ages
of the church. It is a very late twelfth century restoration of the
pre-existing pulpit, which was ruined by the fall of the roof in 1196.
An inscription on the side facing down the nave records that Guglielmus
de Pomo, Superstes—chief priest or superior of the church—caused this
and many other works to be done. It rests partly upon a Christian
sarcophagus of the fifth or sixth century, and partly upon columns. The
cover of the sarcophagus is crowded with figures in bas-relief, among
which appear the effigies of the unknown couple, apparently of high
rank, buried in it. On the side facing into the middle of the church,
Christ is represented, seated among the Prophets, and on the other side
He appears with the Apostles. Abraham sacrificing Isaac is the subject
sculptured on one end, Elijah ascending in the chariot of fire on the
other. These sculptures of the late Roman age, showing the decadence of
a developed style, contrast strangely with the exuberant twelfth century
decoration upon the other parts of the structure—ornamental borders and
friezes with the characteristic curling stems that enmesh strange
animals in endless pursuit of one another, innocent creatures, stags and
hares chased by savage-fanged beasts, birds and grotesque humans forming
caryatids, an ass playing the lyre, an eagle pecked by another bird,
etc. Art has died and been born again in the interval between the old
and the late work. In the twelfth century sculpture we see the wild rush
of a new life, vigorous, cruel and merry, but at the same time
penetrated by the pessimistic consciousness of youth. The difficulty of
the sculptor in dealing with human figures is shown by the absurdly
childish way in which the little scenes of Adam and Eve’s history, in
the spaces beneath the arches, are represented. On the parapet of the
pulpit at the back a Christian feast is sculptured.
The crypt beneath the choir was originally built in the ninth century,
but is now completely modern. Descending into it you may look into the
hallowed recess, where in an ornate silver shrine of very recent date
lie the bodies of St. Ambrose and of the twin martyrs, Gervasio and
Protasio, still beneath the high altar, where long ago the great bishop
willed to lie.
[Illustration: SCULPTURE ON PULPIT IN ST. AMBROGIO.]
Beside the door leading into the crypt, on the north side, there is a
fresco, by Borgognone, of the Child Jesus among the elders in the
Temple, and being found by His Mother. The sweet seriousness and
devoutness of the painter are charmingly shown in this painting; the
colour, warmer and gayer than he often uses, seems a forecast of his
famous pupil Luini. A painting on the wall opposite of Madonna with
Saints, placed so much in the dark that little can be distinguished in
it except its unmistakable Lombard character, has been attributed to
Zenale, but without sufficient evidence.
A chapel on the south side of the church leads to the small sanctuary
which is all that remains of the Basilica Faustæ, or San Vittore in
Cielo d’Oro, afterwards dedicated to S. Satiro, who was buried there in
379 by his brother St. Ambrose. The present chapel, restored in 1859, is
the easternmost bay of the original church, which was probably rebuilt
in the eighth century. The deep cupola is covered with gold mosaic, with
a figure of San Vittore in the centre, whence the name San Vittore in
Cielo d’Oro. The Evangelic Beasts are represented round the cupola, and
on the walls below are stiff figures of bishops and saints of the
Milanese Church. These mosaics are fifth century, but have been
restored.
A chapel lower down on this side of the church is frescoed with the
legend of St. George, by Lanino, a follower of Gaudenzio Ferrari. Near a
side door further down still is a painting, in very bad condition,
attributed to Ferrari—Christ bearing the Cross, with the Three
Maries—and some late and inferior frescoes of the same school. A
coloured stucco image of St. Ambrose, of the eleventh century, done from
a portrait of him taken from life, as the inscription informs us, is to
be seen on the wall nearer the west end. Beneath it is the stone
sarcophagus of Archbishop Ansperto, and the famous epitaph referring to
the building of the atrium. On the north wall, opposite, a relic of the
pagan past is placed over the door leading into the belfry, a bas-relief
of the Vintage, exquisitely decorative and gay. It is supposed to be a
vestige of a Temple of Bacchus, which, according to tradition, stood
upon the site of this church and was swept away by Ambrose. The last
chapel on this side is the baptistery, and here is a fresco by
Borgognone over the altar—the Risen Christ between two Angels. The long,
slender figure of the Christ, graceful but nerveless, the general
expression of pensiveness and sweetness, the colour no longer grey and
pallid, as in his earlier pictures, but rich and harmonious, are very
characteristic of this artist in his late period.
Two columns standing in the nave are surmounted, one by a serpent of
bronze, the other by the cross. The serpent, if we may believe the
eleventh century chronicler Landolfo, is that very one which Moses set
up in the wilderness, and was brought in the writer’s own day from
Constantinople by Archbishop Arnolfo, who had gone thither to seek the
hand of the Emperor’s daughter for Otho III., and to whom the Greeks,
who owned the sacred treasure, had presented it. Women used to bring
their sick children to the column to be healed by the serpent.
In the Sacristy of the Canons may be seen some beautiful illuminated
books, the most precious of which is the famous Missal of Gian Galeazzo
Visconte, of the late fourteenth century, which commemorates the
coronation of that prince as first Duke of Milan. It is exquisitely
illuminated, in clear brilliant colour, by a Lombard miniaturist,
Annovello da Imbonate. The front page depicts the scene of the
coronation; a beautiful composition in which the Duke appears kneeling
in crimson robe and ermine at the feet of the imperial legate, with his
subjects gathered below. In the ornamental border the emblems of the
Visconti are introduced; the snake, the dog chained beneath a tree, the
dove with the motto, _A bon droit_, etc. There are other pages fully
miniatured with scenes of Gian Galeazzo’s career. Among several Corali
of the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, there are two with
very fine and delicate miniatures, attributed to Borgognone and
suggestive of that painter in the sentiment and pose of the figures.
The _Teca degli Innocenti_, a silver casket of the late fifteenth
century, containing relics of the Innocents, and very elaborately
decorated with bas-reliefs of the Massacre, and other New Testament
scenes, is kept in the sacristy, and also a silver pax, called Filippo
Maria Visconte’s, with a bas-relief of the Dead Christ, of Lombard
workmanship; a fifteenth century ostensory, of beautiful Gothic form,
and a processional cross, given by S. Carlo to the church, but of
earlier date.
A door on the north side of the church leads into the canonica, and one
steps out from the grand old Lombard basilica into a beautiful portico
of the Renaissance period. Lodovico il Moro intended to raise here a
stately residence for the Canons. He charged Bramante of Urbino with the
work, but the much occupied architect had little time to devote to it,
and it dragged on, so that only this one side of the cloister, and that
unfinished, was built before the Moro’s fall put an end to all his
ambitious schemes. This fragment, at once so noble and so graceful in
its proportions, and showing a fine and restrained taste in the
capitals, is almost certainly of Bramante’s design, which is more than
can be said of most of the work attributed to him in this city. The
delicious _putti_, in every charming pose, and plastic as life itself,
which decorate the labels upon the arches, show the development of
Italian art in the three centuries which divide them from the grotesque
sculptures in the church. How interesting, too, the contrast between the
treatment of arch and pillar, of brick and stone, by the learned and
sophisticated Quattrocentist, and the same forms, the same materials in
the hands of the rude, vigorous, and deeply religious generation which
built the church. The cloister, in its incompleteness, leaning up
against the old basilica, monument of democratic fervour and strength,
is a poignant relic of the aristocratic and exclusive ideas of the
Renaissance, and of the incomparable grace and joyousness of their brief
reign in Milan. The profiles of the two presiding spirits of that
moment, Lodovico and Beatrice, are moulded on either side of the doorway
by a mediocre Lombard sculptor of the Renaissance period.
A quaint chimney, upon the house facing the cloister, is an interesting
example of a type once common in Milan, and still often seen in the
neighbouring towns.
Adjoining the basilica is the old convent, now a military hospital, with
two fine cloisters, designed, it is thought, by Bramante.
Among the lime-trees on the piazza, near the church on the north side,
stands an antique column, a relic of some pagan building, either the
Roman temple, which is supposed to have preceded the basilica, or of a
summer palace of the emperors, which stood beside it. An ingenious
thirteenth century chronicler, one Daniele, in an imaginary description
of the coronation of the mediæval kings in St. Ambrogio, makes this
column play an important part in the ceremony. _The King must swear the
oath outside the church, where a marble column stands.... He must kiss
the said column, because as the column is upright, so must the judgment
of the sovereign be upright._ A more faithful account of the ritual at
the coronations is given by the tenth century chronicler, Landolfo the
Elder.
[Illustration: CHIMNEY, CANONICA OF ST. AMBROGIO.]