During that year new honours were preparing for Jacopo. Gian Galeazzo Visconti was intending to rebuild the Certosa at Pavia, and set his eyes on Jacopo da Campione as the best architect he could find for it. The Masters of the Milan Lodge dared not dispute the will of the all-powerful Duke, and held a meeting on March 4, 1397, at which it was decided "that Jacopo di Campione, chief architect of the building, qui acceptatus est super laboreria Cartuxiæ, should still retain his position in the works of the Duomo, because the entire absence of the Master who began the building (qui principiavit ipsam fabricam) would cause grave peril and injury to the work. They proposed, however, that Maestro Jacopo might, in cases of necessity, assist in the building of the Certosa, as he had done before."
This document sets the question beyond a doubt that the architect who had most to do with the building of Milan cathedral was this Jacopo of Campione, who had worked with the first architect, Simone, and shared, on his death, the post of chief, with Marco, his fellow-countryman. He died on October 30, 1398.
During the time he was head of the laborerium several Germans worked under him; Milan being so near the German frontier was always a favourite object of German travel. Moreover, I fancy there must during these centuries have been a fraternal intercourse between the Italian Masonic Guilds and those of Germany. We have so many Italians who worked in Germany, and coming back were dubbed with the name of the last place they came from, that it is equally likely that some Germans crossed the border with those fellow-guildsmen on their return, and worked at Milan. This intercourse between the two nations would account for the more German style of Milan cathedral as compared with other Italian churches.
Small Cloister of the Certosa of Pavia.
I have before remarked that the lines of architecture gradually take a more upward tendency the further north we go. The slight point of the arch, as seen in Siena and Orvieto and Florence, is much sharpened in Milan; the rows of little round archlets which covered a Romanesque building with rich horizontal lines, have here become elongated and pointed, all the lines tending upwards, till they become almost monotonous; yet Milan is but the natural northern development of the southern Italian Gothic. It was always the tendency of the guild to seek greater richness of ornamentation in multiplying forms already customary to them. As the Romanesque façade was merely a multiplication of the Lombard single gallery, so the Gothic of Milan is but a multiplication and elongation of the turrets and pinnacles of Siena and Orvieto, and of the pointed gables over elongated arches, with almost an abuse of the perpendicular shaft. Of course I do not speak of the façade in these remarks, that being a discord by the later Renaissance architects. The changes may well have been induced by the strong German influence in the guild.
There were also French artists, such as Jean Mignot de Paris, and Jean de Campanias of Normandy.[267] We hear of a Niccolò Bonaventura from Paris, but his name is too Italian for his nationality to be mistaken. He probably had been employed in France, and brought back the French sculptor-architects with him. All these names, with the Germans mentioned below, are to be found in the report of a meeting of Magistri in 1391. They are qualified as Magistri di pietra viva (sculptors). The German names are, Ulrich de Frissengen di Nein, Aulx di Marchestein, and Johannes Annex di "Friurgo" (Freiburg?). This last has been confused by writers with Giovanni de Fernach, who was a Campionese. Giovanni da Campione worked for many years in Germany, and when he returned was as usual dubbed a German, being called John from Fernach. He brought a hundred stone-cutters to the service of the Duomo of Milan in February 1391. The Administrators approved of him, and considering that he knew Germany and its language, and was a judge of good work, they sent him to Cologne to try and procure some good architects. He went, but finding no one of great talent, he returned unsuccessful, and was obliged to refund to the guild half the cost of his journey. As a compensation, the Administration commissioned him to prepare a design for the southern sacristy. He appears to have shut himself up to prepare this great plan in secret, for on November 1, 1391, the Deputies of the Administration order the Provveditore to send "Giovannolo and Beltramolo" to get the Archbishop's order to command Giovanni de Fernach to explain his intention about the work on which he was engaged; because, "if his plan was not approved, they would not wish it proceeded with."
Then Fernach began to say that Johannes di Firimburg was right, and that the proportions of the church, with which his sacristy had to harmonize, were wrong. On this the President, the Archbishop, and the Deputies sent to Piacenza for an expert, named Gabriele Stornaloco, a great geometrician, to settle the vexed question. He came, made his calculations, and decided that the German critics were in the wrong. Not satisfied with this, they next prayed the Duke to send his sculptor, Bernardo da Venezia, to give his opinion. He came to Milan in November 1391, made his computations, and also decided that the Germans had made a mistake. Then Fernach's plan for the sacristy was handed over to the chief architect, Jacopo da Campione, to modify its proportions; and Fernach's name appears no more in the books of the spenditore.