_Gothic and Renaissance Buildings_
“O tempo consumatore delle cose e o invidiosa antichità.”—LEONARDO DA
VINCI.
A campanile here and there about the city, as for example those of S.
Gottardo and S. Marco, already described, the richly decorated belfry of
St. Antonio—near the Ospedale Maggiore—and but little else, remains in
Milan of the graceful Gothic brick building of the period, early
fourteenth century, when Azzo Visconte beautified the city with many new
edifices. The Duomo stands as the great monument of Gian Galeazzo
Visconte’s time, half a century or so later.
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF PALAZZO BORROMEO]
From the beginning of the fifteenth century dates the Palazzo Borromeo,
a rare example, still surviving, of the domestic building of the Gothic
period. The fine pointed doorway is enriched with sculptured mouldings
of beautiful design, into which at the top is introduced the heraldic
device of the House, the Camel couched in a basket, emblematic of the
patience and the far journeyings of the _Bonromei_, the Good Pilgrims.
The cortile, which is exceedingly picturesque, has porticoes with
pointed arches of wide span, resting on low octagonal pillars with
simple capitals of stiff foliage. On one side, where there is no
portico, the windows are richly ornamented with terra-cotta mouldings,
and are of a somewhat later date. They have been recently restored, and
the fresco decoration in the wall appears too freshly repainted. The
Bit, also a device of the Borromei, is moulded beneath the windows, and
the motto Humilitas, surmounted by a crown—a suggestive juxtaposition—is
repeated everywhere in the painted pattern. Fragments of early fifteenth
century frescoes have been uncovered on other parts of the walls in the
cortile. In one corner we see a company of sweetfaced, pensive ladies,
with the shaven foreheads and turban-like head-dresses and coiffures of
the period, gathered on a ship, which a reverend Signor, in crimson
cloak and cap, seems to await at a landing-place, a page without
beginning or end of one of those entrancing stories of Ursula and her
maidens, or some other saint, or of errant knights and beautiful
princesses which, figured thus upon the walls, fed the romantic spirit
of mediæval households. More complete and of great charm are some
frescoes in a chamber on the ground floor of the palace, which visitors
are allowed to see. They depict the pleasant country life of the
Milanese nobles in the fifteenth century—gaily attired ladies and
gentlemen, with high head-dresses and broad hats, seated round a table
under a tree in a wide landscape, playing the game of cards called
_tarocco_, others dancing, a lady with an astonishingly tall form and
tiny head performing a _pas seul_. These paintings suggest to some
extent Pisanello’s style, and are doubtless by one of the many
painters—Michelino da Besozzo, the Zavatarii, and others, who were
covering the walls of the Viscontean palaces in Milan and elsewhere with
scenes of the same sort, all now long vanished.
The Borromeo Art Collection will be spoken of in a later chapter.
Buildings of the middle and second half of the fifteenth century, the
period of the Sforza, those great patrons of architecture and all the
arts, are much more numerous. Sta. Maria del Carmine, a little to the
south-west of the Brera, was built under the direction of Guiniforte
Solari about 1446, and is the first of the transitional period from
Gothic to Renaissance. It has a modern façade, and the nave is the only
original part, the choir having been rebuilt late in the sixteenth
century. In a chapel on the north side there is a Madonna by Luini, much
spoilt.
[Illustration: CORTILE OF PALAZZO BORROMEO]
Sta. Maria Incoronata, further north, near Porta Garibaldi, consists of
two churches in one, that on the right built by the Augustinian monks,
with the help of Francesco Sforza, in 1451, the other by the Duchess
Bianca Maria ten years later. The twin building is an interesting
memorial of the closely united ducal pair. It has been much modernised.
The exterior of the north side and of the apse, and the tower, with its
rich terra-cotta decoration, make a very picturesque mass of brick
building. Inside the church is the fifteenth century tomb of Gabriele da
Cotignola, brother of Francesco Sforza and Archbishop of Milan, with his
recumbent effigy set up against the wall. Also monuments to some of the
Bossi family, with finely carved profile heads, perhaps by one of the
Busti; a monument to Giovanni Tolentino, attributed to Fusina, and one
or two other sculptured memorials, also of Renaissance style.
The interesting Church of S. Pietro in Gessate, in the east, has kept
more of its original form. It was built about 1460, probably by
Guiniforte Solari, and enlarged later. The nave, of a pure and simple
Gothic, is flanked with chapels of the same style, built by noble
Milanese families. Some of these have escaped seventeenth and eighteenth
century disfigurement. The second chapel on the right has mediocre and
much repainted frescoes of the Marriage and Death of the Virgin. The
decoration of the roof with figures of saints in simulated niches, and
angels in medallions resembling round windows, is a very favourite
arrangement with the Milanese painters. The frescoes in the chapel of
St. Anthony—the next going upwards—are attributed to Montorfano. In the
large altarpiece Mariotto Obiano da Perugia, and Antonia de Michelotti,
his wife, founders of the chapel, are portrayed kneeling to the
enthroned Virgin, to whom they are being recommended by St. Benedict and
St. Anthony respectively. Above is the Dead Christ with St. Sebastian
and St. Roch. The architectural details of this picture are very rich,
and the marvellously patterned dress of the lady is painted with the
utmost minuteness and finish. The dark ashen hue of the Virgin’s face,
the high lights on the salient features, the ugly little angel playing
on the lute, and the general impression of laborious care are all very
characteristic of the uninspired but painstaking minor painters of the
earlier Milanese school.
The great frescoes of the Capella Grifi in the south transept are more
important, and are interesting as being in part by Bernardo Zenale, of
whom there is only one other undisputed work known. As in the altarpiece
at Treviglio, so here Zenale was associated with Buttinone. The frescoes
are, however, so much ruined that it is difficult to judge them or to
distinguish the different hands. On the left wall are scenes from the
life of St. Ambrose, with groups of fifteenth century courtiers in the
foreground. The subjects on the right are almost obliterated, but we
seem to distinguish St. Ambrose again, seated in judgment. The curious
figure above, of a man hanging, is inexplicable, unless as a symbol of
justice visited on malefactors. The general colour of the painting is
warm and decorative, and more spontaneous than Buttinone’s laboured
easel pictures would make us expect. The types of some of the courtiers
in the left-hand fresco, and the women with long plaited hair on the
right are so much fairer and more refined than anything one knows of
Buttinone’s that one is led to attribute that part to Zenale; but the
rather coarse angels of the vaulted roof, very recently uncovered, seem
to be very Buttinone. The white-robed figure of St. Ambrose below them,
on a white horse against a blue sky, prancing forth against the Arians,
scourge in hand, is extremely decorative. On the floor of the chapel,
bereft of the sarcophagus on which it once rested, lies the recumbent
figure of Ambrogio Grifi, buried here in 1495.
In the Via Filodrammatici, close to La Scala, is the beautiful old
doorway of the Palazzo Vimercati, which belongs to the early Sforzesque
period. The portrait of Duke Francesco, sculptured in profile, decorates
the front of the archivolt, with those of Julius Cæsar and Alexander in
flattering conjunction on either side. The rich band of foliage round
the arch culminates in the pine-cone, one of the emblems of the Sforza.
There is much resemblance between this door and that of the Borromeo
Palace.
One of the greatest achievements of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria,
and a proof of an advanced sentiment of humanity, was the erection of
the vast Ospedale Maggiore for the reception and care of the sick, still
to this day the chief hospital of Milan.[16] It was begun in 1456 by the
Florentine architect, Antonio Averulino, or Filarete, who made the plans
and carried on the work till 1465, when he was supplanted by his Lombard
rival, Guiniforte Solari. The southern portion, distinguished by its
elegance and comparative purity of style from the rest, is the only part
of the immense façade which is the original fifteenth century work. The
diversity of architects is plainly revealed in this portion. The lower
part, with its stately round-headed arcade and restrained ornamentation,
is by the pupil of Brunelleschi; while in the windows of the upper
storey, not interspaced in correspondence with the arcade below, the
Lombard affection for the pointed arch and for luxuriant decoration has
prevailed over the original design of the Florentine. The building is
one of the richest examples of the brick and terra-cotta architecture of
North Italy, and this meeting of Gothic and Renaissance ideals in it
adds to its interest. The rest of the façade was built in
Footnote 16:
The famous Lazaretto, outside the old Porta Orientale, a beautiful
fifteenth century building, where the plague-stricken thousands were
huddled in the awful visitations of 1576 and 1630, as described in the
_Promessi Sposi_, has been pulled down.
the seventeenth century, in imitation of the earlier part, but the
coarseness and crowded excess of the terra-cotta decoration betrays its
period. In the great marble portal, the architect, Ricchini, has frankly
followed the style of his own times. Within there is a vast cortile of
the same date. On the south side part of the fifteenth century building
is incorporated in it. Two much spoilt paintings of 1472, by Francesco
Vico, representing Francesco and Bianca Maria Sforza and their
benefactions to the hospital, are in one of the wards. Passages on the
right lead out of the principal cortile into smaller courts, fragmentary
and encumbered with erections for hospital use, but evidently remains of
the original building. The elegance and lightness of the porticoes here,
the graceful terra-cotta ornamentation of the archivolts, the richness
of the moulded brick cornices, the charming colour of the brick and
stone used together, show how beautiful the hospital must once have
been. These old cortiles have been attributed to Bramante, but
apparently with no more justification than most of the other buildings
of this style in Milan, labelled indiscriminately in uncritical times as
Bramantesque.
The Via dell’ Ospedale opens into the piazza beside S. Stefano, where
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, was stabbed to death by Girolamo Olgiati and his
companions on St. Stephen’s Day, 1476. The church, of very ancient
foundation, has been completely modernised, and the atrium where the
deed was accomplished has disappeared altogether. A primitive Madonna
and Saints is frescoed over an altar on the south side, and beside the
west entrance is an archaic bas-relief representing Christ blessing two
saints. Via Brolo leads hence into Piazza Verzieri, the fruit and
vegetable market, where the rows of women hucksters, in their bright
kerchiefs and coloured skirts, seated beneath vast white umbrellas, make
a picturesque scene in spite of the modernised surroundings.
* * * * *
The traces of Bramante’s handiwork in Milan, where he is known to have
been employed for many years, have vanished more and more in the light
of the careful studies of recent times. But in the Church of Sta. Maria
delle Grazie we do at last come upon them, though his part in this
building also seems to be much less than was generally supposed. The
famous Dominican church, with its memories of Lodovico il Moro and
Beatrice d’Este, of Leonardo and Bramante, of the novelist Prior, Matteo
Bandello, brings us to the full Renaissance. It is in part, however, of
the transition style, and links together the earlier and later
Sforzesque periods. It was built for the Dominicans in 1465, by Count
Gaspare Vimercati, one of Francesco Sforza’s chief supporters, and
became later a special object of interest to the Moro, who, not
satisfied with its already antiquated style, began to rebuild it
completely as soon as he attained the Dukedom. His project was, however,
only carried out as far as the choir and cupola. This part used always
to be, and is still by some, attributed to Bramante, but there is no
evidence that he contributed except with his advice and influence to the
work. The great clustered pile, as it appears outside, with its
rectangular and circular projections, its panels and pilasters,
parapets, arcades, columns and candelabra, its medallions and perforated
wheels, seems typical of Renaissance ideas as interpreted by the Lombard
architects, with their dislike for simplicity and broad effects, their
fondness for broken surfaces and elaborate detail, their natural
redundancy. It is grandiose, melancholy and cold. Round the base are
shields bearing the various devices of the Sforza. The flank of the
church, with its long windows and round _oculi_, and rich terra-cotta
mouldings, is of the earlier style used by the Solari, as is also the
façade, but here in the beautiful marble portal, the only part
accomplished of the new front projected by Lodovico, we come upon what
is generally allowed to be actually Bramante’s work. Its large and
dignified character, and the pure design of the arabesques, show a great
artist, and a character foreign to the Lombard. The _scoppetta_, il
Moro’s peculiar emblem, is introduced into the pattern on the pilaster
on the right hand of the door.
On entering the church one cannot but feel grateful that the Moro’s
ambitious designs never arrived at the destruction of this beautiful
Gothic nave, so simple and so graceful, so devout and suggestive, with
its grey columns and hoary colour and touches of faded fresco
everywhere. The story goes that Count Gaspare Vimercati, the founder,
and Fra Jacopo Sestio, who was in charge of the work for the Dominicans,
had much contention over it, the one desiring a fine handsome building,
the other a sanctuary suited to the poverty and humility of the friars.
They seem to have succeeded in embodying the ideals of both. From the
dim Gothic aisles one emerges with a curious sense of contrast into the
great space beyond, where immense arches, springing from heavy
pilasters, support a lofty dome, whence abundant light pours down from a
circle of windows. This is, of course, the later part of the building.
The cupola, which is of nobler and severer aspect within than outside,
is much disfigured by baroque decorations. The device of painting
objects in perspective, to simulate relief, had already attracted the
architects even of the great age, as is shown here, where it is used
with ingenuity and restraint in the simulated parts of the gallery in
the lowest storey of the dome. The Evangelists in the spandrils are a
glaring instance of its abuse in later times.
The choir has fine stalls of 1470, decorated with figures and elaborate
designs in intarsia. High up on the right, near the organ, is a charming
fresco by Luini, painted in 1517, of the Virgin and Saints and a
devotee, one Laschenaer, an officer of Louis XII.’s. It was to this
choir, still unfinished, that the dead body of the young Duchess
Beatrice was carried in those mournful early days of 1497, and here that
the friars chanted Masses round her bier for seven days and nights
without ceasing, and that amid a countless host of mourners bearing
torches she was committed to her tomb. Hither came her husband, to weep
and pray over her grave, before he abandoned his and her Milan to the
invader. Beneath the pavement behind the High Altar she lies now, her
infant children beside her. Some say that the Moro’s body, recovered
from its far-off exile in France, rests here too beside it, but this is
very uncertain. Anyhow a pitiful obscurity covers this grave in which
those brief years of an incomparable pride and glory ended—not even a
stone marks it now. The monument carved for it by Cristoforo Solari,
with the effigies of the husband and wife upon it, has been removed to
the Certosa of Pavia.
There are some ruined frescoes by Gaudenzio Ferrari in the fourth Chapel
on the south side of the church. The old, low-vaulted ornate chapel of
the Rosario, on the north side, has some fifteenth century frescoes,
also ruined. Close to the altar is a large sepulchral monument to the
Della Torre family, late fifteenth century, attributed to the Cazzaniga.
The monument to Branda Castiglione, with the realistic profile and
delicate arabesques, is perhaps by Briosco,[17] and that to the Della
Valle by Fusina.
Footnote 17:
See Malaguzzi Valeri, _G. A. Amadeo_, p. 238.
The most interesting part of the building architecturally is the small
cloister which leads to the old sacristy, both recently restored. Here
the beautiful porticoes, in which the characteristic Lombard charm of
colour due to the combination of brick and stone is joined to a singular
purity and grace of form, justify the traditional belief that Bramante
was the architect. The sacristy also, a lofty rectangular building, is
probably his. The roof is decorated with a curious painted pattern of
intertwisted cords, such as is seen in some of Leonardo’s drawings.
There are beautiful presses, some of which are inlaid, others painted in
imitation of inlay; they are decorated with small painted scenes,
biblical and legendary. They were begun in 1498 by the sacristan, Fra
Vincenzo Spanzotto, and continued later under the care of Matteo
Bandello. In the recess at the east end there is a very poor altarpiece,
representing Gaspare Vimercati kneeling before St. John Baptist,
attributed to Marco d’Oggiono; and on either side of the chapel a
profile in bas-relief, one a portrait of the Moro, the other of his son
Maximilian, a charming-looking youth with curling hair, at about the age
when he returned to Milan as Duke—by some Milanese sculptor of the early
sixteenth century. A fresco on the right-hand side, by Luini, shows
Madonna, with Beatrice d’Este and one of her little sons kneeling as
devotees. It is a charming presentment, joyous and young, of the
princess as she may have remained in the memory of the artist from the
days of his youth.
The convent, now long converted to secular purposes, was, like the
church, the object of Lodovico Sforza’s generosity. Leonardo da Vinci
was commissioned by him to decorate the refectory with paintings, and
there the Florentine artist, working slowly through many years, produced
his Last Supper. The work was probably begun soon after 1483, and
apparently not finished till 1498. The fate that befell it within a few
years is one of the greatest tragedies in the history of art. Owing to
his experimental use of oil, instead of the usual method of
wall-painting, it was already quite ruined—_rovinata tutta_—when Lomazzo
wrote his treatise on painting, sixty years later, and as early as 1536
it was, by Vasari’s testimony, only a blur. The repeated restorations of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have almost obliterated the
faint remaining traces of the master’s handiwork. The Dominicans
wantonly contributed to the destruction of their priceless possession by
cutting a door into their kitchen through the lower part of the central
group, and Napoleon’s troops, stabled in the hall in 1796, gave it a
final battering.
The refectory stands beside the church. As one enters, the ghost of the
great picture appears at the upper end of the long melancholy chamber.
It seems at first sight as if nothing of the real work were left. _Cosa
bella mortal passa_, Leonardo has said himself, and he, least of all,
seems to have cared to give immortality to the beauty which he created.
_E non d’arte_, he adds. And soon we perceive that this too is true
here. For the deep and elemental significance of the painter’s
conception lives still in its largeness and entirety, expressed in the
great lines of the composition, in the distribution of light and shade,
in the disposition of the figures. Our eyes are carried up by every line
of the composition, every action of the subordinate figures, and left
alone with the Christ. He sits upright, His hands spread out upon the
table, His head against the space of light framed by the large middle
window of the long chamber. On either side, but a little apart, so that
no other head intrudes on this central space of light, are ranged the
Twelve, in groups of three. The words have been uttered—_One of you
shall betray me_—and a tempest of surprise and questioning agitates
them. Peter, half rising, grasps the shoulder of John, who still sleeps
on. Judas draws fiercely away, clutching the moneybag. Beyond this
group, Andrew, James the Less, and Bartholomew, variously show distress
and wonder. On the other side, James the Elder spreads his hands in
horror; Thomas lifts his forefinger; Philip, risen, leans forward in
earnest protest. Matthew, Thaddeus and Simon, beyond, comment eagerly on
His words. But their agitation cannot touch that central stillness; it
serves only to deepen the spiritual silence in which He sits solitary.
He has eaten and drunk with them, but they have not understood. Love
itself is asleep, leaning away to a sinner’s breast. Only Hate
understands and watches, proud and defiant, with tense grasp upon its
desire. But even the splendid Judas, supremely evil, draws back afraid.
The Passion has begun. Out there in the dawn lies Gethsemane. Calvary is
beyond. _Could ye not watch with Me one hour?_ will be but a question
already answered; only the _Eli Eli lama Sabacthani_ has yet to come.
[Illustration:
_To face p. 314_]
LAST SUPPER, BY LEONARDO. DETAIL, FIGURE OF CHRIST
[_A. Ferrario, Milan_
]
It is commonly said that Leonardo never quite finished the face of the
Christ. In any case we do not see it now as he left it. The half-length
pencil drawing in the Brera Gallery has been regarded as Leonardo’s own
study for this figure, but if it is genuine—which many authorities
deny—it has been so much worked over by other hands that it has no value
as an indication of the artist’s conception, which remains for us
unparticularised. Studies of the heads of Matthew, Simon and Judas
fortunately exist in the Windsor Castle Collection and show the heroic
lines on which they were designed by Leonardo. The drawings of the
Apostles in the Weimar Collection, photographs of which are to be seen
in the room, are judged to be copies of studies made by one of
Leonardo’s followers from the picture, and are valuable as giving a
contemporary version of the originals. There are also a few genuine
sketches at Windsor and at Paris of some of the groups, and in Venice a
drawing of the whole scene exists, probably a copy of one by the master.
The subject had long occupied Leonardo’s thoughts before he received the
commission, and these sketches show the progress of his conception of
it. Among his writings, too, there are ideas noted down of various
attitudes and actions for the Apostles.
Some of the many copies made by Leonardo’s pupils hang on the walls
here; the most important is the one on the right hand nearest the
original, by Marco d’Oggiono. Here the artist has followed his master’s
work as faithfully as he could, and it is extremely interesting to
notice the differences into which his own temperament has insensibly led
him. These are most apparent in the central figure, which he has
inclined sideways and impressed with a sentimentality and effeminacy
absolutely foreign to the attitude of the original. This shows the
direction in which Leonardo’s Lombard followers were disposed
instinctively to carry his style, evolving a morbid type which has
become too much associated with his name. The copyist appears to have
altered the Apostles, also giving the weakness of exaggeration to their
virile and spontaneous expression of emotion. It is from this copy, or
rather from a copy of it and not from the ruined original, that the
engraving was done by which the picture has become known all over the
world, another instance of the strange fate of ruin or of travestied
existence which has befallen so much of Leonardo’s work. The other
copies in the room lose value by their departure in part from the
arrangement of the original.
[Illustration:
LAST SUPPER, BY LEONARDO. DETAIL, ST. JOHN, ST. PETER AND JUDAS
_To face p. 316_] [_A. Ferrario, Milan_
]
The great work in the Dominican convent attracted immense attention and
interest even during its progress. It is often mentioned by writers of
this time and a little later. Bandello, in one of his novels, gives an
oft-quoted description of the painter at work. _He used often to go
early in the morning and mount upon the platform and, from sunrise until
the dusk of evening, never putting down his brush and forgetting to eat
and drink, paint without ceasing. Then two, three or four days would
pass when he would not touch it, but remained for one or two hours
together contemplating, considering and examining within himself,
judging his figures. I have seen him too, according as his caprice or
humour moved him, go off at noon-day, when the sun was in Leo, from the
Corte Vecchia, where he was composing his stupendous horse of clay, and
come straight to the Grazie, and mounting the platform, take a brush and
give one or two strokes to one of the figures, and straightway depart
and go elsewhere._ Doubtless Bandello was often in that room, where the
friars watched the progress of the painting with great impatience,
annoyed at the painter’s unaccountable lengthiness. Duke Lodovico
himself, finest and most appreciative of critics, would sometimes come,
and many noble gentlemen were wont to visit the painter here and
converse with him as they contemplated his work. The fame of the great
picture spread quickly throughout Europe. When Louis XII. entered Milan
in 1499, he came to see it, and expressed a desire, fortunately
impracticable, to carry it away to his own country. With him were Duke
Ercole of Ferrara, the Marquis Gian Francesco of Mantua, and many other
brilliant and historic characters; among them was Cæsar Borgia, and
possibly it was on this occasion, before his newly finished picture,
that Leonardo first met this extraordinary man, into whose service he
shortly after entered.
The other end of the refectory is filled with a vast fresco of the
Crucifixion, by Montorfano, signed with his name and the date 1495. The
perfect state of preservation of this poor, laboured and crowded
composition, an inferior example even of the Milanese school, seems a
bitter irony here. The Lombard painter, sticking to the old groove, has
achieved the permanence which Leonardo recklessly risked for the sake of
an experiment. At the lower corner of the painting, on either side, are
portraits of the ducal family kneeling in devotion, Lodovico and the
little Maximilian on the left, Beatrice and the younger child Francesco
on the right, and these, unlike the rest of the picture, are in very bad
condition—almost obliterated. Vasari affirms them to have been painted
by Leonardo himself at the special command of the Duke, and in oil, like
the Last Supper; but the portraits themselves, as far as can be judged
from what remains of them, are quite mediocre and do not bear out his
statement.
* * * * *
In San Satiro, entered from Via Torino, we come at last to a building
really by Bramante. The church is properly called Sta. Maria, the
ancient S. Satiro being represented by a chapel incorporated with it. It
was founded in 1476, on the site of a shrine containing a miraculous
picture of the Virgin. It is a purely Renaissance building, but has
certain peculiarities due to cramped conditions, the builder having been
restricted in space and bound by the necessity of embodying the remains
of the old Basilica of S. Satiro on one side and of an existing Chapel
of S. Teodoro on the other. The difficulties have been ingeniously
surmounted, and the effect is very fine, but it seems a pity that the
genius of Bramante should not have had room for free play. The general
impression on entering into the rich and gilded obscurity of the
interior is of great breadth and spaciousness. The three aisles, in
which the dividing pilasters and arches are unusually low in proportion
to the height of the roof—a feature explained by the necessity of
according them with the old S. Satiro, now the Chapel of the Pietà—open
out into a great space roofed by a lofty cupola and with wide transepts.
The church ends in a grandiose semicircular choir. Here the architect
met with his chief difficulty, being prevented by the street outside
from carrying the building as far eastward as was necessary for his
design after allowing full scope for the rise of the cupola. He has
overcome it by a deceptive use of perspective, the depth of the choir
being simulated, not real. The device can only be admired for its
ingenuity and the cleverness with which it is executed.
The gilded friezes and capitals of the nave are of the best Renaissance
style, rich but of clear and not over-elaborate design. In the spandrils
beneath the cupola are medallions circled with gilded ornamentation and
containing paintings of the four Evangelists, by Bramantino, dignified
forms, dim and rich in colour as seen from below. There is an old
picture of the Virgin over the High Altar, with a portrait in it of the
young Duke Gian Galeazzo Sforza, but it is held in such extreme
veneration that the veil covering it may not be withdrawn except on one
special day of the year.
The Chapel of the Pietà is at the end of the left transept. This ninth
century structure, founded according to tradition by Archbishop
Ansperto, was restored at the time when the large church was built
beside it. The coloured terra-cotta group of the Deposition which gives
its present name to the chapel, a crudely realistic work, ably modelled
and utterly inartistic, has been ascribed, quite unjustifiably, to the
famous Milanese goldsmith, Caradosso, a delicate worker in fine
materials. It is probably by one of the many Lombard sculptors of the
style of the Mantegazza.
Adjoining the church on the right is the Baptistery or sacristy, a
beautiful little example of Bramante’s work. It is a small octagonal
building with a lofty dome and very richly decorated. The remarkable
terra-cotta frieze, composed of heads projecting from wreaths, between
groups of sportive _putti_, and painted to look like bronze, has been
also always ascribed to Caradosso; but it is now pronounced to be
certainly not his work, the style of the heads, vigorous, realistic, and
somewhat coarse, showing all the characteristics of the late fifteenth
century Lombard school of sculpture, rather than the fine hand of the
metal-worker, trained in Rome, whom documents, moreover, prove to have
been absent from Milan when this work was executed.
The exterior of the church is much hidden by the houses around, but a
bit of it can be seen closely in Via Falcone and shows Bramante’s hand
in the bold classic style, and the strong, simple, and graceful design
of the terra-cotta ornamentation. From the Via Carlo Alberto one gets an
impressive view of part of the low and elaborate Renaissance pile, proud
and learned, and beautiful with brick and stucco decoration, swelling
beside the simple old Campanile which belongs to the original ninth
century church, and is the most ancient example of a Romanesque tower
now existing in Milan.
[Illustration: SAN SATIRO]
The Monastero Maggiore, also called S. Maurizio, in the Corso Magenta,
is an early sixteenth century building of typical Renaissance form, by
Dolcebuono, and is extremely interesting on account of the complete and
beautiful decoration of the interior by Luini and his school. It is one
of the principal shrines for the worshippers of that master, who is seen
at his best there. Luini was commissioned, about 1522, to paint this
church by Alessandro Bentivoglio and his wife, Ippolita Sforza, their
daughter Alessandra being a nun in the ancient and wealthy Benedictine
convent to which it belonged. The interior, which is of great length,
without aisles, has a very graceful gallery or loggia all round, and
chapels in the corresponding space below. A partition wall in the
middle, not reaching to the roof, divides it into halves, the lower half
being the public church, with the High Altar at its upper end, and the
part shut off behind the choir that reserved by the nuns for their
private use. The whole interior has the effect of a splendid hall,
rather than a church. The walls are entirely covered with paintings, of
the strong gay colour characteristic of Luini’s work, dimmed by time to
a delightful harmony where the temptation to “freshen it up” has been
resisted. Beautiful ladies, in richest robes, look out from beside the
High Altar with that sweet familiar smile, of which the charm grows
somewhat stale by too much repetition. The emblems they carry show them
to be saints—Cecilia and Ursula holding a tabernacle between them,
Apollonia and Lucia standing on either side of a small figure of the
Redeemer. Above them appears a real lady of the time, Ippolita Sforza
herself, a beautiful and stately creature, in a spreading white brocade
dress, kneeling under the protecting presence of three saints, of whom
Sta. Scholastica, who has her hand on Ippolita’s shoulder, is said to be
a portrait of her daughter, the young Suora Alessandra. Alessandro
Bentivoglio, a mild personage, who is lauded by his daughter in a
memorial inscription for having done no one any harm—_nemini nocuit_—is
depicted in a corresponding composition on the other side of the altar,
with S. Benedict, St. John Baptist, and St. Lawrence. Above on the left
is the Martyrdom of St. Maurice, and on the right St. Sigismund, the
supposed original founder of the church, offering a model of the
building to St. Maurice, who stands upon a pedestal, and in the
background of the same composition is seen the Martyrdom of Sigismund.
Between is represented the Assumption of the Virgin, in which the
principal figure has been unfortunately much restored. The altarpiece is
by Campi, 1578.
The frescoes of the chapel on the right of the sanctuary are also by
Luini. In the midst is the Scourging of Christ; on the left the fine
portrait of an old man, Francesco Besozzi, at whose charge the chapel
was painted, and St. Catherine protecting him; on the right St.
Lawrence. Above and at the sides are depicted scenes from the legend of
St. Catherine. The figure of the saint being beheaded—on the right-hand
side—is very beautiful. The meek bent head, with rich gold hair simply
coiled, the adorable neck bared for the sword, the golden dress,
composing an exquisite harmony of colour, make one forgive Luini for
sometimes boring one a little. Bandello, in his story of the Contessa di
Cellant, tells us that this is a portrait of that naughty and ill-fated
lady, who was beheaded on the piazza of the Castello in 1524 for having
induced one of her lovers to murder another. But there seems to be no
real foundation for this identification, and it is difficult to
associate this wholly lovely creature with the too passionate Contessa.
The frescoes in the other chapels are by the school of Luini.
Passing into the choir, or Nuns’ Church, we see on the other side of the
dividing wall more frescoes by Luini himself, corresponding to the
decoration on the public side. Here is another row of sister saints,
whose beauty is the more enchanting for the veil spread over them by the
centuries, and happily undisturbed. These gracious ladies stand for
Apollonia, Lucia, Catherine, and Agatha. The story of the Passion is
frescoed round the altar. Near by may be seen the arms of the Bentivogli
and Sforza quartered together, and the initials of Alessandro and
Hippolita, the benefactors of the church. The lower part of the wall is
decorated in chiaroscuro, with angels and saints in simulated
terra-cotta medallions. The ceiling painting over the altar—God the
Father surrounded by saints—is by Borgognone, by whom are also the
figures of bishops and saints between the arches on each side of the
church. The rest of the frescoes with which the walls are everywhere
covered are poor works, by the sons and followers of Luini. The carving
of the double row of stalls, simple but of very good style, is of the
same period as the church.
By a staircase, which emerges on a terrace, where you find yourself
close to the ancient brick campanile of the convent—a relic, some say,
of the Roman walls, or, according to other authorities, one of the
towers built by Ansperto when he restored the walls in the ninth
century—you are conducted into the upper gallery of the church. Over the
doorways leading through this loggia there are half-length paintings of
women saints by Boltraffio, exceedingly charming where they have not
been spoilt by repainting. They have the familiar contours of that
artist’s Madonnas, but the colour, unlike the hot and opaque tones of
his oil-painting, is very fresh and delicate, and decorative. They are
all there, the Martyrs, Catherine, Agnes, Agatha, and the rest, each
sweet-visaged creature bearing a green branch flowering into red or some
lovely blossom. Here is one of a type especially characteristic of
Boltraffio, with long golden hair curling in rings over her shoulders;
she is dressed in green and purple, and holds a lily. On the wall
dividing the two parts of the church there are some very poor frescoes
by the sons of Luini—the Supper in the House of the Pharisee, the
Adoration of the Magi, and the Baptism of Christ.
The effect of the long gallery and of the richly-decorated church as
seen through its graceful pillared openings is very charming. A fit
temple for Suora Alessandra and her fellows, those vestal virgins of the
Renaissance, cherishing the flame of its many-sided religion in their
art-irradiated cloisters, innocent sacrifices for the sins of the too
vigorous races, Bentivogli, Sforza, and many another almost as wicked,
from which they sprang. Beneath the archways, where their beautiful
martyr sisters of long before look sweetly down upon them, the meek
veiled figures seem to flit silently before us. But they, too, are but
beings of the imagination now. The little door in the wall between
Luini’s saints is never opened now for the passing of the Eucharist to
the cloistered worshippers on the inner side. No sweet voices rise any
more to the accompaniment of that ornate organ; the long row of stalls
has been untenanted this hundred years and more. In this place, where
those virgin princesses and ladies knelt and adored, surrounded by these
exquisite creations of the Renaissance spirit, and by its lovely order
and refinement, the loathsome dust to-day lies thickly everywhere, and
no foot falls but that of a chance visitor. And the vast gardens and
vineyards of the convent, where behind high secluding walls Alessandra
and her companions took the air and played and laughed, let us hope, and
where, doubtless, the stately Ippolita came to visit her daughter,
bringing a breath of the joyous world outside, have given place to
modern streets and houses, and the great Monastero Maggiore has utterly
disappeared, except for this one rich relic, the church.
Sta. Maria della Passione, with a great cupola built by Cristoforo
Solari early in the sixteenth century, and an ornate late Renaissance
façade, contains one of the most important works of Luini’s earlier
career, a large picture of the Deposition, in the choir. There are some
fine Cinquecento choir stalls. In the right transept are Christ and the
Apostles by Borgognone, and in the left a Last Supper by Gaudenzio
Ferrari. The sacristy has frescoes by Borgognone.
_Sta. Maria presso S. Celso_ adjoining the little Romanesque basilica of
S. Celso, was built by Dolcebuono at the end of the fifteenth century,
but altered and finished later. The ornate façade is of the later part
of the sixteenth century. The cloister in front was probably designed by
Cristoforo Solari. There are some pictures by important masters in the
spacious and imposing interior. The lowest on the left-hand side is a
characteristic work by Borgognone—Madonna, with St. Roch and St. John
Baptist. Behind the choir there is a Madonna with St. Jerome, by Paris
Bordone; the Baptism of Christ, by Gaudenzio Ferrari; and St. Paul, by
Moretto. In the sacristy is preserved a very precious example of ninth
century goldsmith’s work, a cross given by Louis the Pious to Milan, of
exquisite workmanship and thickly set with gems. It has figures of the
Emperor and Empress and the Carlovingian princes carved upon it. The
treasure also includes a carved Cinquecento jug, once attributed to
Cellini, and one or two other pieces of goldsmiths’ work. There are,
besides, some beautiful embroidered vestments.
S. Giorgio al Palazzo, in Via Torino, an old church completely
transformed in recent centuries, contains in the third chapel on the
right some fine frescoes by Luini, of the scenes of the Passion. The
Crucifixion in the dome of the chapel is an impressive composition,
quiet and harmonious in colour.
S. Fedele, designed by Pellegrini in the latter part of the sixteenth
century, and containing fine Cinquecento choir stalls—once in the
destroyed church of S. Maria della Scala—St. Alessandro, of the
seventeenth century, S. Carlo, built about a hundred years ago, all
sumptuously decorated in the taste of their times, and other less
important churches of the same style, have little artistic interest, and
are, in any case, far outside the scope of our mediæval story. We must
turn back to the best period of the Renaissance, and look at some
palaces which still remain from that time.
The Palazzo Carmagnola, also called the Palazzo di Broletto, at the
corner of Via Rovello and Via Dante, is the oldest of these palaces, and
is also of historic interest. Duke Filippo Maria gave a house here, in
1418, to his great general, Carmagnola, who rebuilt it a few years
later. The house passed through one of his daughters to the Dal Verme
family, and was confiscated in 1485 by Lodovico Sforza, who installed
his mistress, Cecilia Gallerani in it later. The historian Giorgio
Merula, one of the ornaments of the Moro’s court, also inhabited it for
some years. When Louis XII. made himself master of Milan, he gave the
palace to his general, Charles d’Amboise, and later on it came into the
possession of the city, and was used for public offices, whence it
acquired the name of Palazzo di Broletto. It is now the Intendenza di
Finanza. The building has little of its old aspect left, but there is a
picturesque cortile of the late fifteenth century, with graceful and
characteristic sculptured capitals, part of a probable restoration of
the palace by the Moro, to make it a habitation worthy of his beautiful
favourite.
A beautiful late Quattrocento palace is the Casa Fontana, or Silvestri,
in the Corso Venezia, which has a noble portal of classic form,
supported on columns in the form of candelabra, and windows enframed in
terra-cotta ornamentation. The façade is, moreover, painted in
chiaroscuro, with designs of the typical style of Lombard Renaissance
decoration—colossal heads and sporting _putti_, etc. It has been
attributed to Bramante, but is more probably the work of local
architects. The cortile is very picturesque.
Casa Ponti, in Via Bigli, has a Cinquecento cortile of very graceful
proportions, and glowing with the deep rich colour of painted
decoration. On the walls above the porticoes there are full-length
figures, representing gods, muses, the arts, etc. They are of noble
grace and stateliness, with the familiar contours and the everlasting
smile of Luini and his school. The archivolts, spandrils, the little
arcade beneath the rich projecting cornice, are all covered with
arabesques and devices of graceful and playful fancy. We see here the
very setting of that joyous decorative Cinquecento life which has hardly
its parallel for beauty in history. But the old glory of it is dimmed by
the passing of centuries and the influences of a damp climate. Many of
the figures are in very bad condition, and on one side of the court
modern copies have been substituted and the originals removed and placed
on the staircase of the palace, where, if one has the good fortune to be
allowed to enter, one may study closely the gracious figures of Painting
and Sculpture, and some delightful baby forms, riding on sea-horses,
playing with grapes, etc., from the frieze upon the parapet in the
cortile. The portal of the palace is a fine example of early sixteenth
century building, and has two little statuettes of Madonna and the Angel
of the Annunciation, in the spandrils.
Casa Castani—opposite S. Sepolcro—of the late fifteenth century, has
also a fine doorway, of simple but noble form. It is decorated with
classic heads in the spandrils, and has a Greek motto on the cornice,
signifying Good Luck. A medallion of Francesco Sforza appears above, a
sign of homage to the reigning house, often seen on palaces of this
period in Milan. The cortile is built with double loggias.
Casa Dal Verme in Foro Bonaparte, opposite the theatre of that name, is
another house of the same style, with an exceedingly picturesque
cortile, to which the warm colour of the terra-cotta decoration gives a
great charm. Between each arch there is the familiar decoration of
medallions with shields or classic heads. These palaces have all much
affinity, and they are generally attributed to the influence of
Bramante. They have, indeed, been labelled sometimes as the work of the
Master himself. The style is, however, common throughout North Italy at
this time, though probably derived in the first instance from Florentine
sources. There are others of similar style in different parts of the
city.
No. 10-12 Via Torino, entered through a squalid passage, has a very
picturesque small court, with porticoes surmounted by two open storeys,
and delightful terra-cotta ornamentation. This beautiful old fragment of
the Milan of the Sforza period has fallen into plebeian use, and is,
moreover, doomed to speedy destruction in the course of projected
improvements to this crowded quarter.
[Illustration: PALAZZO VISCONTI DI MODRONE—GARDEN ON THE NAVIGLIO]
There are many fine palaces of the late sixteenth and of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries in Milan, of heavy and ornate Renaissance
style, degenerating into florid excesses in the later period. These do
not come within our subject, but one or two must be mentioned. The
enormous Palazzo Marino, the seat of the Municipality, was built in the
middle of the sixteenth century by Galeazzo Alessi for a Genoese named
Tommaso Marino, who had made an immense fortune as a merchant in Milan.
Before the great edifice was finished however, the fortune had been
swallowed up by various misfortunes, and the family discredited through
one of Tommaso’s sons, who murdered his wife. The palace was sequestered
in 1577 by the city, to which it still belongs. It is of the grandiose
style of the later Renaissance, and the cortile is extremely ornate,
though the decoration is not allowed to conceal the stately
architectural lines. The great hall is also very richly decorated in the
same style with stucco reliefs and paintings. The façade into Piazza
della Scala is modern.
The Palazzo de’ Giurisconsulti, in Via Mercanti, opposite the Palazzo
della Ragione, was built in its present handsome but heavy form by
Vincenzo Seregni in the sixteenth century, at the charge of Pope Pius
IV., of the Milanese house of Medici, whose arms appear on the edifice.
Till recent times this palace formed part of the old enclosure of the
Broletto Nuovo.
The Palazzo Arcivescovile, of which the large cortile was built by
Pellegrini, has been already mentioned in Chapter X.
The house—in Via Omenoni—built by the sculptor Leone Leoni for himself
in the second half of the sixteenth century, is remarkable for the
colossal statues supporting the cornice, whence it has acquired the name
of Palazzo _Omenoni_.
Palazzo Chierici—an eighteenth century building, now a law-court—close
to Sta. Maria del Carmine, should be visited for the sake of a great
ceiling painting by G. B. Tiepolo, the Venetian painter. The room is
open to the public.
You may get a charming glimpse of old Milan—long past the mediæval
period indeed, which we set out to describe—but in a luxurious, leisured
Settecento aspect almost as completely gone in these her industrial
days, by walking down the Via Damiano—passing, by the way, as you turn
out of Via Monforte, one of those locks in the canal which are
attributed to the invention of Leonardo da Vinci—along the Naviglio,
till you come to a beautiful pierced balustrade facing you across the
narrow streak of water beneath a thicket of wistaria, chestnut and
flowering trees. Behind appears the graceful arched portico of the
palace to which the garden belongs—the Palazzo Visconti di Modrone. The
wistaria has climbed all over the trees, and in spring it is a cloud of
softest purple. You see the fine feathery twigs and sparse young leaves
of the trees caught high up against the blue in delicate wreaths and
garlands of the tender-coloured bloom, and hung with a film of its fine
tendrils. A curtain of it drapes the lively green of the horse-chestnut
and smothers the spikes of white blossom. The dry stem from which all
this loveliness gushes forth, to fall in these cascades and streams of
delicious colour, winds in great serpentine coils in the shadow over the
parapet, and you may trace its stealthy and sinuous climb amid the
branches of the trees—the strangling clasp of its huge vine. The central
part of the parapet is guarded by two delightful stone _putti_, holding
cornucopiæ—the genii of this joyous blossoming place. Mocked by the
still flow and reflection of the water beneath, you might fancy yourself
for a moment in Venice.
The flowering May-time of the year is a pleasant moment in which to see
this Milan, when her squares and gardens break forth into the luxurious
blossom of magnolia, chestnut and wistaria, which endear all her modern
ways by their colour and sweetness, and soothe with the sight of their
ever recurring, imperishable beauty, our regret for all that has
perished.