Cathedral Cities of Italy

by W. W. Collins

MILAN

WHEN the great wave of conquest which swept mid-Europe in the fifth century broke against the walls of Châlons-sur-Marne and the westward march of Attila and his Huns was checked, the defeated hordes of the East followed their chief across the Alps and invaded the plain that stretches away now, just as it did in those far-off days, to the sunny seas that beat against the southern slopes of the Apennines. In the centre of this plain stood Mediolanum, a city ranking second only to Rome, and her greatest colony in the Peninsula. So rich and prosperous a place became of necessity the object of attack, and the hosts that looked to "the Scourge of God" as leader, swept into and through the fair city, sacking it completely. Rebuilt, but once again undergoing the same fate at the hands of Frederick I. in 1162, there remain but a colonnade of sixteen Corinthian columns near the Porta Ticinese, a few tablets and fragments let into the walls of other gateways, and some relics in the museum, to tell of the past glories of Rome's great colony.

Milan, as we know it now, is the centre of commercial Italy. Intersected by an excellent system of tramways, with beautiful public gardens and magnificent buildings, it is up to date in every way and stands quite apart from all the other cities with which this book is concerned. The one thing that, perhaps, above all others places it in this position is, however, no product of this commercial age, but its world-famous work of art, the great cathedral, through the lofty aisles of which still reverberates the grand music of the Ambrosian Ritual. The exterior of this immense church, next in Italy to St. Peter's in size, is adorned by a forest of spires, pinnacles, turrets and lace-like tracery. In the midst of all this rises the central tower with its airy spire, from the base of which on a clear day the snow-clad peaks of the Alps may be seen stretching miles on miles away, and bounding the whole of the northern horizon by a lovely dreamland of colour.

Very few buildings compel one's admiration as this does, an admiration wrung in my case from a mind out of sympathy with everything that lacks the dignity of repose; but such is the effect obtained by hundreds of pinnacles and statues, by the turreted flying buttresses, by the filling of every available foot of space with ornament, that one cannot but appreciate the result of the skill and patience so truly Italian, which has carried out these infinite details and produced the great work that stands in the Piazza del Duomo. The present fabric, dedicated "Mariæ Nascenti," is the third cathedral built on the site: the first was destroyed by Attila in 452, and the second by Barbarossa in 1162. The foundation-stone was laid in 1387 by Gian' Galeazzo Visconti, who from a northern clime sought his architect, Heinrich Ahrler, of Gmünden. From that time down to the present day many have had a hand in its making, among them Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giulio Romano, and the wonder is that the great structure is not far more full of incongruities than it is. The whole exterior is built of white marble from the quarries of la Gandoglia on the Simplon Road, given by the founder for this purpose.

The façade rises with a course of open Gothic work to the gable above, and is divided into five sections which terminate in clusters of Gothic turrets surmounted by pinnacles and statues. The central doorway is surrounded by excellent Renaissance sculpture, the door itself being a magnificent piece of seventeenth-century bronze work. On each side are two more portals. The bases of the intervening buttresses contain splendid panels, and the Caryatides, which support the slender Gothic shafts right and left, by Rusca and Carabelli, are extremely good in pose and execution. The great façade designed by Pellegrini for S. Carlo Borromeo in 1560 was never carried out owing to the saint's death while Pellegrini was away in Spain working on the Escorial for Philip II. The east end is the oldest part of the building, and is almost entirely taken up by three grand Gothic windows. The east window, which is of most beautiful tracery, was executed from the designs of a Frenchman, Nicholas Bonaventure. Both the other windows are fine, but the upper portion or rose pattern, although in itself very delicate, appears "stuck in," and not part of the design; some of the glass in these is very rich in colour. The archivolts of the arches are filled with figures which follow the curve in a rather uncomfortable style, not only here but in every other window save the fine classical of the façade.

The interior is grand, and of immense height, albeit the vaulting with its admirably painted tracery is evidence of the great skill of the Italian at "faking." The mellow light from the amber coloured glass of the octagon and the twilight filtering through the gorgeous hues of the other windows is remarkably and impressively pleasing. The columns of the nave, in clusters of eight shafts, are eighty feet high, and carry narrow capitals of foliage which form the base to eight canopied niches occupied by figures of saints—a fine feature. The aisles are double, the outside being lower than that next the nave. The four columns at the crossing which support the octagon are of larger dimensions than those in the nave. Two semicircular pulpits covered with bas-reliefs of gilded bronze stand on either side of the steps leading into the choir, to the solemn darkness of which the shadows thrown from the sounding-boards above make pictorially a good foreground introduction. These pulpits are supported by caryatides representing the Evangelists and four doctors of the Church.

The choir was designed by Pellegrini, and contains a fine sixteenth-century tabernacle of gilded bronze. Beneath is the subterranean church, through which one enters the tiny chapel, under the central spire, wherein is deposited, in a magnificent silver shrine the gift of Philip IV. of Spain, the body of S. Carlo Borromeo dressed in full pontificals. Born in 1538 he was created cardinal by his uncle, Pius IV., in 1561. After the close of the Council of Trent he assisted other prelates to draw up the epitome of Catholic doctrine, the "Catechismus Tridentinus"; but it is more for his good works and great charity, especially during the plague of 1576, that he lives in the hearts of the Milanese.

In the north transept is a very good example of the metal work of the thirteenth century, in the shape of a fine bejewelled bronze candelabrum. It forms a tree and has many quaint figures in its intricate design. In a chapel in this aisle is the old wooden crucifix which S. Carlo carried when barefooted he tramped the streets during the plague, tending the sick. In the south transept close to the corner near the staircase leading on to the roof is a monument to Giacomo and Gabriele de' Medici, brothers of Pius IV., and a bronze statue of S. Bartolommeo which represents him flayed. The south sacristy door is a fine specimen of Gothic work. Unlike the exterior effect, nothing obtrudes inside this great cathedral. The eye on entering looks straight up to the east, conscious as it travels there, of great pillars rising into the gloom of the vault above, of fine glass and restful solemnity, in which even the chapels in the aisles are lost, to be discovered later on only when searched for.