"Bel paese è Lombardia
Degno assai, ricca e galante.
Ma di gioie la Soria
E di fructi è più abbondante
Tanta fama è per il mondo
Del gran vostro alto Milano,
Che solcando il mar profondo;
Siam venuti da lontano,
Gran paese soriano,
Per veder se cosi sia,
Bel paese di Lombardia."
Still greater interest attaches to Lodovico's description of his own visit to the Certosa and of the alterations which he effected in the choir. This famous church and monastery had been the pride of successive Dukes of Milan, since the day when Galeazzo Visconti laid the first stone in his park of Pavia a hundred years before. Viscontis and Sforzas had alike helped to enrich their ancestor's mighty foundation, and to carry on the work. But the Certosa owes more to Lodovico Sforza than to any other member of the dynasty. From the day when he returned to Milan and took up the reins of government in his nephew's name, to the last sad moments when his state was crumbling to pieces, this great shrine was the special object of his solicitude. In his eyes, as he said in the letter informing the Prior and brothers of Duchess Leonora's visit, the Certosa was the jewel of the crown, the noblest monument in the whole realm. The completion of the façade and the internal decoration of the great church and chapels was one of the objects that lay nearest to his heart. A whole army of architects and sculptors, painters and builders were employed under his orders; and so great was the store of precious marbles, brought there from Carrara and other parts of Italy, that the place was said to resemble a vast stone quarry. During the twenty years that the Moro reigned as Regent and Duke in Milan, the new apse built in Bramante's classical style, the central cupola, and the beautiful cloisters with their slender marble shafts and dark red terra-cotta friezes of angel-heads, all rose into being. Then Ambrogio Borgognone decorated the roof of nave and apse, and designed the elaborate intarsiatura of these very choir-stalls to which Lodovico alludes in his letter to Isabella d'Este. And then the same Lombard master painted these frescoes and altar-pieces of grave saints and gentle Madonnas, which still adorn the side chapels with their solemn forms and rich golden harmonies. Many of these are ruined, others we know are gone. The fragments of the noble banners with portraits of kneeling figures, which the artist painted for processional use on solemn occasions are now in our National Gallery. There, too, is that loveliest of all Perugino's Madonnas, with the warrior Archangels at her side, and the perfect landscape beyond, which the Umbrian master painted in the last years of the century, by the Moro's express command, for his favourite sanctuary.
But the crowning work of Lodovico's days was the façade of the great church which, after many different attempts, was finally begun in 1491, and mostly executed during the next seven years. This magnificent creation, the triumph of Lombard genius, was designed by a native architect, Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, or Di Madeo, as he signs himself, a peasant lad who had grown up in his father's farm close by, and whose earliest independent work is said to have been a group of angels on the marble doorway leading from the church into the cloisters. He had afterwards been employed at Bergamo, where the Colleoni Chapel and the effigy of the great Condottiere's young daughter, the sleeping virgin Medea, still bear witness to his poetic invention and rare decorative skill. One of Lodovico's first acts after his return to Milan had been to recall Amadeo to Pavia, and in 1490, this gifted artist was appointed Capo maestro of the Certosa works. To his delicate fancy and exquisite refinement we owe much of the lovely detail in the church and cloisters, the singing angels of the portals, the reliefs on Gian Galeazzo's monument, and in the monks' lavatory, and the medallions of the Sforzas over the doorways of the choir. There we may see the strongly marked features and refined expression of the great Moro, between his brother and his nephew, while above the opposite portal are the four Duchesses of Milan, Bianca Maria Visconti, Bona of Savoy, Isabella of Aragon, and Beatrice d'Este with the same soft, beautiful face, the same long coil of hair and jewelled net that we see in her portrait in the Brera or in Cristoforo Romano's bust in the Louvre.
But the wonderful marble façade, with its great central portal and round-headed windows, its historical reliefs and marvellous wealth of decorative sculpture, is Amadeo's grandest creation. We know not how far it was completed before 1499, when his labours as chief architect of the cathedrals of Milan and Pavia compelled him to give up his post at the Certosa; but in much of the ornamental detail—in the angels that adorn its branches of the candelabra between the windows, in the profusion of carved trophies, armorial bearings, burning censers, cherub-heads, leaf-mouldings, flowers and fruit that has been lavished on every portion of the west front we recognize his handiwork. And this façade of the Certosa, more than any other architectural work of the age, bears the stamp of Lodovico Sforza's peculiar genius. Alike in the abundance of classical motives and in the amazing wealth of invention and infinite grace that inspired the whole conception, we recognize Lodovico's passionate love of the antique and minute attention to detail. We know that he was constantly on the spot, as the letter to his sister-in-law proves, and that when absent from Pavia the works of the Certosa were constantly in his mind. He was always writing orders to Amadeo to buy marbles and hurry on the work, always urging the prior to hasten the completion of the church, or inquiring in Florence and Rome for new masters to paint altar-pieces for the Certosa. And to-day, when so many of his noblest creations have perished, when the glorious pile of the Castello of Milan, with its stately towers and frescoed halls, rich decorations and vast gardens, has been defaced and battered by the hands of barbarian invaders, when Leonardo's fresco is a wreck and the tomb of Beatrice broken to pieces, when Vigevano and Cussago are in ruins, and the matchless library of Pavia has been scattered to the winds, we rejoice to think that the Certosa remains to show us how splendid were the dreams and how rare the skill of artists in the days when Lodovico Sforza reigned over Milan.
One of the finest artists who was working at the Certosa under Lodovico's eye in the summer of 1491, was the accomplished Roman sculptor, Giovanni Cristoforo Romano. We remember how he had been sent to Ferrara in the autumn of the previous year to execute a bust of Beatrice for his master. Since then he had gone back to his work at the Certosa, where he was employed upon the monument which Lodovico was raising to his ancestor Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the founder of the great Carthusian Abbey. His exact share in this noble work, which was begun in 1490, remains uncertain, but both the effigy of this duke and the figure of the Madonna and Child in the upper part of the monument are generally ascribed to his hand. At the same time Cristoforo had promised to design the chief portal of the ancient Stanga palace in Cremona, which was being restored by Lodovico's Superintendent of Finances, the Marchese Stanga, known in court circles as the Marchesino, to distinguish him from his father, Duchess Bianca Maria's faithful servant. That June the Marchesino was married at Milan to a daughter of Count Giovanni Borromeo, and on this occasion, doubtless, he employed the gifted Roman sculptor to design the magnificent doorway which now adorns the Louvre and is a masterpiece of classic elegance. But now a fresh invitation reached Cristoforo from another quarter.
The Marchioness of Mantua had seen the Roman master's bust of her sister Beatrice when she came to Milan in the winter for the wedding festivities, and was seized with an ardent wish to have her features carved in marble by the same unrivalled artist. On the 22nd of June she wrote to Beatrice from her favourite villa at Porto, near Mantua, begging her to ask Lodovico if he would kindly allow "that excellent master, Johan Cristoforo, who carved your Highness's portrait in marble," to come to Mantua for a few days, that he might render her the same service. Beatrice, who was always ready and anxious to gratify Isabella's wishes, replied that she had shown the letter at once to her husband, and that Lodovico would gladly comply with her sister's request, and had written to beg the Marchesino—for whom Johan Cristoforo was working at that moment—to send this master to Mantua. "No doubt by this time," he adds, writing from Pavia on the 15th of July, "Messer Cristoforo is already on his way to Mantua."
But the sculptor, like most great artists, took his time about his work, and would not be interrupted or hurried, even to please so charming and illustrious a lady as Isabella d'Este. He wrote a courteous note to the Marchesa from Pavia, saying how gladly he would have obeyed her summons on the spot, and how deeply he regretted that this was impossible, since he could not leave the work upon which he was engaged for the Marchesino unfinished. But he hoped to have the pleasure of seeing her some day. Meanwhile he suggested that she should order two pieces of fine marble from Venice, and see that they were very white and without stain or vein of colour. Isabella, however, was not easily discouraged, especially where excellent masters and works of art were in question, and, as she wrote on another occasion to Niccolo da Correggio, liked to have her wishes gratified on the spot. This time she wrote to the Marchesino himself, begging him to send Messer Johan Cristoforo to Mantua as soon as possible. Now Giovanni Stanga, besides being a finished courtier, was on intimate terms with the fair Marchesana herself and with all her family. Only a few weeks before, Isabella had written him a charming letter of congratulation on his marriage, and he often sent presents of silver boxes and ornaments both to her and Duchess Leonora. So, when his own doorway was finished, he did his best to induce the sculptor to oblige the marchioness. But Cristoforo had evidently no intention of leaving Pavia at present. The summer months slipped away, and still Isabella waited in vain. At length, in October, she heard from the Marchesino that Messer Cristoforo feared it was impossible for him to come to Mantua at all this year, since his whole time was spent in working at the Certosa, besides which he was one of the Duchess of Bari's singers, and must obey her wishes and travel with her, now in one direction, now in another. "At present," adds the writer, "he is with her in Genoa."
It was not, in fact, until after Beatrice's death that Isabella obtained Lodovico's leave for his favourite sculptor to visit Mantua. By that time the duke's affairs were in dire confusion, and seeing there was little hope of further employment and none of certain pay, Messer Cristoforo left the Milanese court sorrowfully and went to Mantua, where he carved the lovely doorway still to be seen in Isabella's studio of Il Paradiso at the top of the grim old Castello, and designed the beautiful medal of the marchioness herself, which was praised as a divine thing at the Court of Naples, and which the old scholar Jacopo d'Atri kissed a thousand times over, for the sake of its beauty and of the likeness which it bore to the beloved mistress whom he had not seen for so many years. Afterwards we know Cristoforo moved on to Urbino, where Bembo and Emilia Pia and the good duchess all gave him a glad welcome, and Castiglione enshrined his memory in the pages of the Cortigiano. Then, again, we find him in his native city, Rome, searching for antiques in the ruins of the Eternal City, and examining the newly discovered Laocoon with Michelo Angelo, until at last the incurable malady which had long undermined his strength put an end to his life, and he died in the prime of manhood at the Santa Casa of Loreto. But his best work was done, and his happiest years were spent, in the service of Duchess Beatrice, at the court of Milan.
If Lodovico did not always care to part from his best artists at Isabella's request, he rarely failed to oblige his charming sister-in-law in other matters. Presents of game and venison, choice vegetables and fruit, artichokes and truffles, apples and pears or peaches, were constantly borne to Mantua by his couriers; and in return Isabella would send him the famous salmon-trout of the Lake of Garda, that were accounted such rare delicacies, and which Lodovico was fond of seeing at table, especially, as he often remarked, in Lent. The correspondence between the two courts was briskly kept up that year, although Isabella was unable to visit Milan. Lodovico himself rarely missed a post, and complained repeatedly that Isabella was not so regular a correspondent as himself.
"Certainly, my affection for your Highness is greater than yours for me," he says, writing in September, 1491. "It is plain that I think of you much oftener than you think of me, and I know for certain that I write far more letters to you than you ever write to me."