The Story of Milan

by Ella Noyes

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.