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.
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.