At the entrance of the choir upon a grille which supports a crucifix, surrounded by angels in adoration, we read the following inscription framed in wood: Attendite ad petram unde excisi estis. On each side there are two magnificent pulpits of wood, supported by superb bronze figures and ornamented with silver bas-reliefs, the subjects of which are their least value. The organs, placed not far from the pulpits, have fine paintings by Procacini, if my memory does not deceive me, for shutters; above the choir there is a Road to the Cross, sculptured by Andrea Biffi and several other Milanese sculptors. The weeping angels, which mark the stations, have a great variety of attitudes and are charming, although their grace is somewhat effeminate.
The general impression is simple and religious; a soft light invites you to reflection; the large pillars spring to the vault with a movement full of vitality and faith; not a single detail is here to destroy the majesty of the whole. There is no overcharging and no surfeit of luxury: the lines follow each other from one end to the other, and the design of the edifice is understood in a single glance. The superb elegance of the exterior seems but a veil for mystery and humility within; the blatant hymn of marble makes you lower your voice and speak in a hushed tone: the exterior, by reason of its lightness and whiteness, is, perhaps, Pagan; the interior is, most assuredly, Christian.
In the corner of a nave, just before ascending the dome, we glance at a tomb filled with allegorical figures cast in bronze by the Cavalier Aretin after Michael Angelo in a bold and superb style. You arrive straightway on the roof of the church after climbing a stairway decorated at every angle with prohibitive, or threatening inscriptions, which do not speak well in favour of the Italians’ piety or sense of propriety.
CATHEDRAL OF MILAN: FLYING BUTTRESSES
This roof all bristling with steeples and ribbed with flying-buttresses at the sides, which form corridors in perspective, is made of great slabs of marble, like the rest of the edifice. Even at this point it is higher than the highest monuments of the city. A bas-relief of the finest execution is sunk in each buttress; each steeple is peopled with twenty-five statues. I do not believe there is another place in the world that holds in the same amount of space so large a number of sculptured figures. One could make an important city with the marble population of the Cathedral statues. Six thousand, seven hundred and sixteen have been counted. I have heard of a church in the Morea painted in the Byzantine style by the monks of Mount Athos, which did not contain less than three thousand figures. This is as nothing in comparison to the Cathedral of Milan. With regard to persons painted and sculptured, I have often had this dream—that if ever I were invested with magical power I would animate all the figures created by art in granite, in stone, in wood, and on canvas and people with them a country which would be a realization of the landscapes in the pictures. The sculptured multitude of this Cathedral bring back this fantasy. Among these statues there is one by Canova, a Saint Sebastian, lodged in an aiguille, and an Eve by Cristoforo Gobi, of such a charming and sensual grace that it is a little astonishing to see her in such a place. However, she is very beautiful, and the birds of the sky do not appear to be scandalized by her Edenesque costume.
From this platform there unfolds an immense panorama: you see the Alps and the Apennines, the vast plains of Lombardy, and with a glass you can regulate your watch from the dial of the church of Monza, whose stripes of black and white stones may be distinguished....
The ascent of the spire, which is perforated and open to the light, is not at all dangerous, although it may affect people who are subject to vertigo. Frail stairways wind through the towers and lead you to a balcony, above which there is nothing but the cap of the spire and the statue which crowns the edifice.
I will not try to describe this gigantic basilica in detail. A volume would be needed for its monograph. As a mere artist I must be content with a general view and a personal impression. After one has descended into the street and has made the tour of the church one finds on the lateral façades and apses the same crowd of statues, the same multitude of bas-reliefs: it is a terrifying debauch of sculpture, an incredible heap of wonders.
Around the Cathedral all kinds of little industries prosper, stalls of second-hand booksellers, opticians selling their wares in the open air, and even a theatre of marionnettes, whose performances I promise myself not to miss. Human life with its trivialities swarms and stirs at the foot of this majestic edifice, which, like petrified fireworks, is bursting its white rockets in the sky; here, as everywhere, we find the same contrast of sublimity of idea and vulgarity of fact. The temple of the Saviour throws its shadow across the hut of Punchinello.