 Milan's Duomo Cathedral |
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Tell me, Mr. Colonel the Emperor asked Where do you have your coats tailored? In Milan? Unfortunately, I have already completely forgotten the tailors there. JOSEPH ROTH, The Radetzky March, 2., XV. Like a mountain in the shape of a church, Milan Cathedral rises in the centre of the city, which has grown around it in a circle, against an often hazy sky. 3400 human stone figures climb the Cathedral from all walls. Some have reached the 135 spires, which resemble firtrees stripped by some prehistoric thunderbolt and transformed into marble trunks, and have been petrified, too, in this unusual position. Others have remained stiffened in various heights inside the Cathedral and on its façade, in niches or hanging from incredible hooks, as if they were waiting for their turn. What is thesignificance of this Cathedral, a record of a motionless past, a monument omnipresent in images and medals of the city, for the modern Milan of business and fashion?
The eternal immutability that seems to form the basis of every Christian building is not suitable for Milan Cathedral. No document reports who designed the ground plan and when this was done, nor which site foreman assumed the responsibility for the first chisel stroke. The General Regulations for the building of the Cathedral, issued by GIAN GALEAZZO VISCONTI in 1387, confirmed SIMONE DA ORSENIGO in the role of the General Engineer, who was then followed by German and French architects, in truth not very popular amongst the Northern Italian workers. By the way, at that time, the initial concept of the Cathedral to be constructed had already been changed. The planned dark-red city church had become the white, unique national monument that was to support the ruling Duke's claims to power over important centres of Central and Southern Italy. The white marble was delivered from the quarries of Candoglia, which today are in East- Piemonte but then belonged to Milan. Sculptors and smiths came from Southern France, from the Palatinate, from Swabia, the Rhineland and Silesia, from Prague, Austria and Hungary. Most of the artists, master builders and workers, however, came from the local people and the Milanese trades. |
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Italy > Milano
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| Few churches, in Italy, had such a slow and long construction process as the Duomo in Milan; its elaboration lasted a five centuries span of time during which many leading personalities came from all over Italy to give their advice and suggestions. Six buttresses surmounted by spires divide the façade (56 metres in height and 67,9 metres in width) into five parts that correspond to the five aisles found in the inside. Around the year 1500 the first of the four spires was built and, following the drawings of Pellegrino Pellegrini, called Tibaldi, the floor and the stalls of the Choir were completed. The highest spire reaches 108.5 meters and is surmounted by the statue of the Madonnina , coated by 3.900 gold laminae. |
| Photo: Giuseppe Pennisi |
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Italy > Milano
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Italy > Milano
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Italy > Milano
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Italy > Milano
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Italy > Milano
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Italy > Milano
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| The sense of grandeur soon strikes the visitor, whose attention is drawn by several worthy details. The church is externally 157 metres long, it is 92 metres large at the transept, with a surface of 11.700 square metres, with 3.400 statues. The plant is a Latin cross, the long arm space is divided into a nave and five aisles, that of the transept into three aisles, your glance is soon directed toward the altar, positioned at a slightly higher level, by an imposing perspective created by the sequence of pillars. The pillars' capitals are really original: they are made of eight niches hosting statues of martyrs near the altar and statues of angels near the apsidiole. The central nave is higher than the ones on the sides which preserve a 19 th century decoration in their vaults. The pointed arches just as the stained glasses are a typical of the Gothic style. |
| Photo: Giuseppe Pennisi |
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Italy > Milano
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Italy > Milano
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