These payments go on for at least four years, during which time Antonio di Marco seems to have had little to do with the building. Sometimes Giovanni Solari even does the commercial business. In 1429, the register notes 4 lire, 5 soldi paid to him for his expenses in going to Milan and Pavia, on business connected with the building, and in the same year he pays six Masters who come from Milan to Certosa, when there was a competition for some sculptures in marble for the monastery.[274] The sculptors working under him were mostly his compatriots. Here are Maestri Rodari da Castello, Giovanni da Garvagnate, and Giovanni da Como paid for sculptural works in 1428 and 1429; also Maestro Antonio and Maestro Giovanni di Val di Lugano, employed as builders (rattione edificiorum novorum).
There are also frequent mentions of Jacopo Fusina, and the two Solari, who form such a link between Milan and Venice. The Solari were the stock from which came the famous line of Lombardi, who may be almost called the makers of Venice.
To this little group of architects we owe the exquisite cloister of the Certosa, with its labyrinth of fairy white marble columns, and the ruddy beauty of ornamentation on terra-cotta arches. Our illustration shows the beauty of Campionese work at this era.
Giovanni Solari of Campione, who is said in this work to have inaugurated the beautiful terra-cotta architecture of Lombardy, appears to have held office as chief architect up to nearly 1460, when his son Guiniforte succeeded him. Under Guiniforte, Gio. Antonio Amadeo, or Omodeo, entered his novitiate. When, in 1466, he reached the age of nineteen, he was already engaged at the Certosa as a sculptor. A deed drawn up by the notary Gabbi, on October 10, 1469, shows that the Administration lent him certain blocks of marble, for which he was to pay their equivalent in work; the payment he made was the beautiful door leading from the church into the cloister, still known as "the door of Amadeo." It is exquisitely decorated in Bramantesque style; reliefs of angels and foliage surround the door; and in the tympanum is a fine relief of the Virgin and Child. He, too, became famous in Venice, as did the two brothers Cristoforo and Antonio Mantegazza, who had just been trained under Jacopo da Tradate at Milan. Indeed, the network of this marvellous company of sculptor-builders is at this epoch interwoven in a most complicated manner between Milan, Certosa, Como, Monza, and Venice.
The façade of the Certosa forms precisely the same discord with the body of the building that the façade of Milan does, but here the Renaissance face is so rich and gorgeous that one almost forgives the discord. It has been attributed to Bramante of Urbino, whose name never appears in the books; to Bernardo of Venice, who died long before it was begun; and to Borgognone the painter, who was only invited to the Certosa by the Prior in 1490, when the façade was well begun.
Sig. Merzario, with his documental evidence,[275] proves that Guiniforte di Solario certainly designed it, and for the most part superintended its execution. On January 14, 1473, the notary Gabbi registered a contract between the Prior of the Certosa and the Administration of the Milan Lodge, for the furnishing of 200 cwts. of white marble of Gandoglia, annually, for ten years, to serve for the façade of the Certosa church. On October 7, 1473, the same notary makes the contract, by which the brothers Cristoforo and Antonio Mantegazza are commissioned to erect all the façade, according to the plans given them by the monastery.[276]
Renaissance Front of the Church of the Certosa at Pavia.