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Gothic in Milan

For gothic in Milan we mean the artistic experience of the city between the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth century. The Gothic style, initially introduced into the Milanese territory by Cistercian monks, was the main artistic language of the vast patron and self-congratulatory program of the Visconti, lords of Milan, whose dominion over the city is usually associated with the Milanese Gothic period.

Historical overview
As a conventional date of the beginning of the Gothic experience in the territory of the lordship of Milan, the ascent to power of the Visconti family is often indicated in 1282 . The penetration of the new artistic tendencies in the Alps came later than in central Italy, where the Cistercian Gothic had already produced the Abbey of Fossanova (1187) and the Abbey of Casamari (1203) almost a century earlier. This delay in the introduction of the Gothic language in Milan can be explained by the strong and rooted presence of Romanesque architecture, also by virtue of the link between this architecture and theEmpire, which was not exceeded only by the new political course of the Visconti lordship .

The date, however, is only indicative because the first example of Gothic appeared in Milan by the Cistercian monks in the first half of the 13th century : in 1221 the abbey of Chiaravalle was consecrated by the bishop Enrico Settala. At the same time, however, the Gothic style did not spread appreciably in the territory, however, with styles strongly influenced by the Romanesque, up to the work of Azzone Visconti between 1329 and 1339, which introduced at its court Pisan artists and Florentines .

The dense program of support for the arts inaugurated by Azzone Visconti was carried on by his successor Bernabò Visconti, but above all by Gian Galeazzo : under his lordship the largest Italian gothic construction site for the construction of the new city cathedral was inaugurated. For this work, which was monumental and grandiose in the mind of the duke, architects and artists from all over Europe were called to Milan: the continuous confrontation between local and foreign workers helped bring the Lombard Gothic style to maturity, before then anchored to the fort Romanesque heritage, creating a synthesis between Italian and European Gothic architecture .

After a setback due to a turbulent political period after the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the Milanese artistic splendor resumed its vigor under Filippo Maria Visconti who in the first half of the fifteenth century transformed the Milanese court into one of the major centers of Italian humanism, calling at his service personalities such as Francesco Filelfo, Pier Candido Decembrio, Gasparino Barzizza and Antonio da Rho. In the last years of the Visconti domination, similar to what happened in Florence, there were then the first hints of the new Renaissance art with the work of Masolino da Panicale in Castiglione Olona.

The conclusion of the Gothic experience is therefore indicatively made to coincide with the collapse of the Visconti lordship in 1447, with a late Gothic style that would have been grafted onto early Renaissance Italian center experiences to give life to the Lombard Renaissance .

Religious architecture

The introduction of the gothic: the abbeys
In Milan, as in other places, the Gothic language was introduced by Cistercian monks from France : the first example of Gothic in Milan is the abbey of Chiaravalle, built from the first half of the thirteenth century by monks from the abbey of Clairvaux. The description must take into account the particular complexity of its history, which sees interventions on the church from its foundation until the eighteenth century : for example the gothic facade remains only the upper order in terracotta decorated by an oculus and a mullioned window enclosed in the profile of the gable roof decorated with hanging arches.

The church, built respecting the architectural indications for the Cistercian churches provided by San Bernardo, can be defined for its structure and part of the decoration as a compromise between the 13th century Lombard architecture and the Cistercian gothic, or the first building to break the tradition Romanesque and to introduce, even with forms very mitigated by the Lombard tradition, the gothic forms .

The first works to overcome the transition between Romanesque and Gothic were the works for the southern cloister of the church, with pointed arches in bricks supported by columns coupled in stone. However, the most important architectural intervention of gothic and that most characterizes the abbey was the construction of the tower: the tower has an octagonal shape and rests on the presbytery with a square plan to which it is connected through the use of plumes with decreasing arches. The octagonal tower is composed of three vertical orders that shrink to the upward direction: the tower is decorated with an alternation of mullioned windows, single and square, in which decorations in terracotta and white marble alternate to create a contrast of colors .

Inside, among the most interesting pictorial decorations we can mention the fragments of fourteenth-century frescoes by the Evangelists in the space of the dome and the sixteen figures of Saints, the author identified as Primo Maestro of Chiaravalle . In the lower part of the dome are the Stories of the Virgin, a refined and elegant composition of Giotto taste attributed to Stefano Fiorentino and based on the Legenda Aurea by Jacopo da Varazze .

Founded in 1176, much of the Viboldone abbey was built between the end of the 13th and 14th centuries. The terracotta façade, completed in 1348, has a gabled structure delimited by hanging arches and is vertically divided into three partitions defined by buttresses. The portal presents a rich marble decoration with sculptures of the Madonna with Child among the saints of the school of Sampling is flanked by two newsagentswall units and two narrow single-lancet windows with cuspated terracotta frames; the decoration of the upper order is composed of a circular window and three mullioned windows, of which the two side are purely decorative as they do not give on the lower side aisles. The interior is divided into three naves with cross vault

Next to the mid-thirteenth century is therefore the internal pictorial decoration: the most ancient work is the fresco of the Madonna with Child and saints in the apse of an anonymous Lombard master with Tuscan influences. Always on the apse walls is the Judgment of Giusto of Menabuoi in which it is taken to the scheme of the Judgment of Giotto at the Scrovegni chapel . Finally we can cite the Stories of the life of Christ by an anonymous Lombard painter in whom the naturalistic accuracy of Lombardy is influenced by the use of chiaroscuro by Giusto dei Menabuoi, and theMadonna enthroned among saints by Michelino da Besozzo .

Although outside the municipal territory, the abbey of Morimondo is undoubtedly related to the city, which, as for the abbeys just mentioned, was born in the first half of the 12th century thanks to the arrival of Cistercian monks from France. Also in this case we find ourselves, in the original parts of the church, in front of a very primitive Gothic style, recognizable for example in the slender proportions compared to those of Romanesque art. The façade is in exposed brick with mullioned windows and rosette, made in a very simple way as dictated by the rules of Cistercian architecture .

The Visconti period
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Lord Azzone Visconti inaugurated a real program of patronage that had its fulcrum in Gothic architecture. Among the earliest achievements we can mention the church of San Gottardo in Corte, built as a ducal chapel dedicated to the patron saint of gout who would have struck Azzone, however much reworked in appearance in the eighteenth century . The octagonal bell tower and the semi-octagonal apse are preserved from the original external appearance : the decoration is made by alternating terracotta elements, already typical of theLombard Romanesque architecture, and elements in white marble . A prominent feature of the complex is the octagonal bell tower attributed to Francesco Pegorari from Cremona : the use of terracotta is prevalent in the lower floors of the bell tower to leave room for white marble in the upper parts up to the crowning, probably taken from the tower of the abbey of Chiaravalle and at the top of the Cremona tower .

The interior, as described by the chronicles of the era of Galvano Fiamma, was completely frescoed by Giotto, called in Milan by Azzone Visconti, and his school: only the Crucifixion attributed by some remains of the painting cycle remains today. directly to the Tuscan master , while according to another hypothesis some characters of the painting, such as realism and attention to details, would suggest an anonymous, though extraordinary, Giottesque sphere master with Lombard influences .

The church of San Cristoforo sul Naviglio is composed of the union of two buildings dating back respectively to the end of the twelfth century and the end of the fourteenth century. The façade, also divided in two, presents on the left a pointed portal in brick with a rosette inscribed in the arch, according to some interpretations in a Lombard key of the side portal of the church of Santa Maria della Spina in Pisa, while on the right there is a portal with a pointed top, less decorated but with more slender proportions and flanked by two windows with pointed arches. On both sides of the façade there are remains of frescoes. Inside, the right side of the church has a rectangular-shaped hall with a wooden roof and a semicircular apse, while the left part has a cross-shaped cover with single- lighted windows on the wall that provide lighting. Among the fragments of frescoes visible in the church we can mention the Crucifixion of the Zavattari .

The church of San Lorenzo in Monluè dates back to the second half of the 12th century. It was built by the order of the Umiliati in a very simple style probably borrowed from Cistercian architecture. The façade is very slender in exposed brick, the very simple portal has a round arch surmounted by a fake protiro flanked by two narrow single- lancet windows. The bell tower of the church, with a square plan, is composed of four horizontal orders: the top floor is decorated with mullioned windows with arches resting on stone columns. The very simple interior has a single nave and originally had a wooden truss roof : on the walls there are remains of frescoes on the theme of vegatali elements, typical of the Lombardic painting of the early 14th century .

The church of San Marco was founded in the late twelfth century by Augustinian monks, however, the heavy interventions suffered by the church since the sixteenth century have largely upset the appearance, recovered minimally in the exterior with the nineteenth-century restoration of Charles Maciachini . Of today’s original structure we can see today the broken-line structure scanned vertically by buttresses: original are also the terracotta rose window and the white marble portal surmounted by three statues of Saints Augustine, Mark and Ambrogio. The quadrangular brick belfry dates back to the early 14th century and incorporates one of the typical architectural models of the Milanese area of the period already used for example in the Mirasole Abbey and in the Monza Arengario .

Of the original pictorial decoration some fragments of fresco of the left apsidal chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary remain visible, namely the Madonna with Child enthroned and saints dating back to the late thirteenth century, influenced by Byzantine style but also by the frescoes of the basilica St. Francis of Assisi and the subsequent fresco of the Magdalene and a holy knight, whose stylistic similarities with the construction site of the Abbey of Chiaravalle lead to the work of the so-called Primo Maestro of Chiaravalle. Inside the church there are also many important sculptural works dating back to the Gothic period, including the Funeral Monument to Lanfranco Settala, and the Arche Aliprandi, treated in the sculpture section .

The church of Santa Maria del Carmine, although founded at the end of the fourteenth century, does not present significant elements of Gothic architecture with the exception of the plant: the façade is in fact the result of a nineteenth-century neo-Gothic restoration while the interiors were mainly decorated between the XV and Seventeenth century. The plan is a Latin cross with three naves, a form taken from the Certosa di Pavia by the same architect Bernardo da Venezia. From the reading of the plant it is clear the construction of the constructive rule “ad quadratum”, which uses a square as a basic element for the definition of proportions: the main nave consists of three squares, as well as the transept, while the naves and side chapels they have the area of a quarter of the elementary square .

In the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio there is the Visconti chapel begun in 1297 by Matteo Visconti. Of the original pictorial decoration only the figures of the four Evangelists remain in good condition, while there are traces of subsequent frescoes such as the Triumph of Saint Thomas, Saint George liberating the princess and seven Saints, attributed to the so-called Master of Lentate, author of the cycle of frescoes in the oratory of Santo Stefano di Lentate. Finally, the chapel contains the Ark of Matthew and Valentina Visconti. Still in Sant’Eustorgio you can find in the Torriani chapel some late-Gothic frescoes dating back to 1440 of Evangelisti and Saints attributed to the circle of Zavattari .

The Visconti chapel was however left aside by Barnabò Visconti, who moved the family chapel into the demolished church of San Giovanni in Conca today : the external architecture and the interior layout were taken from the architecture of the abbeys of the time, as the façade is translated before demolition with rosette and single-lancet on the model of the abbey of Viboldone. Among the remains of the pictorial decoration taken before the demolition of the church are the announcing Angel and the Virgin announced by an anonymous painter of the early ‘300 with Venetian influences. Stories of St. John the Evangelist are instead of the most markedly Tuscan influence, kept in the collections of the Sforzesco castle, in which bright colors are used with hints of perspective construction; attributed to an anonymous master of the circle of Giusto dei Menabuoi .

In the Basilica of San Calimero there is the fresco of the Madonna with Child by Leonardo da Besozzo, a fifteenth-century late-Gothic painting of the characters inspired by the frescoes of the Borromeo Games in the Borromeo Palace and his own work in the church of San Giovanni a Carbonara in Naples. Leonardo, son of Michelino da Besozzo, collaborated with his father in the realization of the Madonna dell’Idea kept at the cathedral of Milan .

It should be noted that of the numerous churches built in Gothic style between the twelfth and fifteenth century, only a few examples survive today, while most were completely transformed between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries during the work of the cardinals Borromeo or demolished with suppressions giuseppine in the eighteenth century. Among the demolitions carried out in the latter period we can mention the church of Santa Maria di Brera : the façade was designed by Giovanni di Balduccio and contemplated a front in a chapelbuilt with white and black marble to form alternating color bands, while the internal subdivision in three naves was emphasized on the outside with some buttresses. The portal had a round arch with splay crowned by a cusp containing a small rose; the decoration was then completed by mullioned windows and three mullioned windows and various groups of statues including the group of the gimberg. Only a few traces remain inside the Brera art gallery, including some side bays of the church where frescoes of Saints and Prophets are attributed to Giusto dei Menabuoi. The church had an interior with three naves divided by columns with zoomorphic capitals typical of Lombard sculpture of the late thirteenth century .

The cathedral
The vicissitudes of the Milan cathedral, a masterpiece of international Gothic, were complex since the foundation of the Fabbrica in 1386 and would continue for many centuries to come: only the apse, the sacristies and part of the transept are original with the rest of the church subsequently carried out more or less adhering to the original project. A very strong push in the key to the construction of a magnificent factory was by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, recently crowned duke by the emperor, who financed part of the work and worked for the collection of other funds among the population and called architects from all Europe, especially from France, Germany and Flanders .

The initial design, now lost, was probably of an Alsatian architect, but after a few years the architect was replaced to give way to a period of continuous changes of architects and projects: within a few years they were called to the building site of the cathedral, among others, the French Nicolas de Bonaventure, the Italians Antonio di Vincenzo and Gabriele Stornaloco, and the Germans Giovanni da Fernach and Heinrich Parler. Among the main reasons for the various contrasts was the choice of proportions for the façade, which would have been inscribed in a square (construction “ad quadratum”) or in a triangle(construction “ad triangolum”) .

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The diatribe can be summarized with the Italian proponents of the form “ad triangolum”, which would have finally triumphed leading to the construction of a lower church of the most stubby proportions, and the German and French masters in favor of an “ad quadratum” module that would have allowed a taller and slender façade . A similar debate took place with the Parisian architect Giovanni da Mignot, who was also hunted after a short time, on the proportions and the static of the vaults: these debates, which went well beyond the normal campanilistic re-enactments, were mainly linked to the resistance of the Italian tradition still linked to Romanesque architecture and to the consequent delay with which the Milanese territory acknowledged the novelties of the European Gothic .

The first detachment of the cathedral compared to the previous Milanese churches was the perimeter structure, which unlike the other churches, which provided for an eventual covering of the brick structure with more noble materials, is composed exclusively of Candoglia marble blocks : the bearing structure presents the buttress system – rampant arch typical of Gothic architecture, with the outer perimeter walls decorated by a huge number of statues and peduncles . The external statuary decoration is presented, in relation to the commissions of the Gothic period, as a sample of European sculpture with works carried out by local workers, Burgundian, Bohemian, German and French: especially the last two groups are attributable to the ninety-six Giants that adorn the gargoyles of the structure. Jacopino da Tradate and Matteo Raverti are among the main Lombard artists who take care of the thick forest of external statues.

Two of the exemplary works by the two main Italian sculptors active on the construction site are the San Bartolomeo Apostolo by Jacopino da Tradate and the Santo Vescovo del Raverti: in the first case, extensive drapery is used and there is particular attention to detail, for example in the yield of the beard, without however giving excessive expression to the face, which instead happens in the statue of Raverti, which returns a suffering saint with hollow cheeks resulting from careful studies and modeling .

The apse is, due to the aforementioned temporal reasons, the part most adhering to the styles of the international Gothic: the three pointed arched windows are profoundly decorated with the central theme of the Raza Viscontea, or the radiant sun symbol of the family, designed by Michelino da Besozzo: the stained glass windows are decorated, with the cycle with the Old Testament stories in the north window, the Apocalypse in the central window and with the episodes of the New Testament in the southern windows, by Stefano da Pandino and Franceschino Zavattari . More generally, starting from the first fifteenth century, the cathedral can be considered one of the major European laboratories of the art of stained glass windows, in which the major Lombard painters of the various ages would participate until its conclusion .

The interior has a Latin cross plan with the hall divided into five naves, with a slightly jutting transept divided into three naves and a semi-octagonal apse. The cross vaults are supported by polystile pillars with capitals decorated with Saints placed in niches by Giovannino de ‘Grassi .

The portal of the southern sacristy, sculpted from 1392 by Giovanni da Fernach with decorations of the Stories of the Virgin, is a perfect example of German international Gothic. Above a sober lintel made by Giovannino de ‘Grassi decorated with quadrilobed tiles with heads of prophets, there is the most exuberant decoration, with the theme of Stories of the Virgin, inserted in an ogival arch flanked by two pinnacles and ending at the top with a Crucifixion. The extrados of the bezelfinally presents the traditional gothic decoration with large curled leaves. Among the original decorations, inside the sacristy there is the basin with a rostrum with a cusp, also by Giovannino de Grassi . A similar decoration can be found in the entrance of the northern sacristy, beyond which you find yourself in the only room of the cathedral where you can admire the original pavement of the church, dating back to the early fifteenth century, created by Marco Solari, together with remains of contemporary terracotta decorations .

Civil and military architecture
Among the first interventions that sanctioned the gothic spread in Milan, we can mention the interventions of Matteo and Azzone Visconti in the Broletto Nuovo, the current piazza dei Mercanti, which has long been the seat of the city’s power .

The first building to be rebuilt was the Osii lodge in 1316 : the façade is made of black and white marble, a choice that broke with the traditional use of exposed terracotta although already used in the church of Santa Maria di Brera, and is set on two horizontal orders originally arcades. The ground floor has round arches supported by octagonal stone columns, this configuration is repeated on the upper floor with the use of arches of equal width but pointed, while there is a parapet decorated with Visconti coats of arms. The building is finally crowned by a tall cornicewhere there are niches with a barrel vault in which there are statues all round : among the subjects we can mention the Madonne with the Child, and various Saints, including Sant’Ambrogio and San Giacomo .

Starting from 1433 it was built the house of the Panigarola, very remodeled over the years, whose original structure remain the pointed arches with terracotta borders on the ground floor, supported by columns with capitals decorated with leaves, while on the upper floor there is a window in terracotta not original but that takes up the original project with typical decoration of Lombard architecture of the early fifteenth century .

Another intervention of the square, now completely lost as it was replaced by the Palatine School building, was the portico of the Bankers, built starting in 1336 with a porticoed structure similar to that of the Osii lodge .

Among the few gothic private palaces preserved in the city we can mention Palazzo Borromeo built from the late fifteenth century. Part of the original structure is the exposed brick façade with the portal with pointed arch decorated with ashlars in Candoglia marble and red Verona marble enclosed by a frieze with creasing . The courtyard of honor is porticoed on three sides with pointed arches supported by octagonal columns with capitals decoarati with leaves. On the non-arcade side, there are six single- pointed brick ceilings, while on the walls there are traces of frescoes with heraldic motifs of the building patrons . Inside there are traces of late-Gothic frescoes of the Borromeo Games, attributed by some to Pisanello. Once present in the palace and subsequently removed are various fragments of frescoes, including the collection of pomegranates attributed to Michelino da Besozzo, today preserved in the fortress of Angera . An equally valid alternative hypothesis attributes however the realization of the Borromeo Games complexto an author called Master of the Borromeo Games: this attribution different from Pisanello or from Michelino was conferred following the analysis of a rediscovered San Giovanni dolente, fragment of the frescoes of Palazzo Borromeo with stylistic references to Christ in Pietà of Masolino while showing influences of Lombard school .

Of the numerous towers of the time, which were built together with the noble palaces, only the Gorani tower and the tower of the Morigi have arrived today.

From the historical descriptions of the Palazzo Reale, at the time broletto Nuovo and then Palazzo Ducale, one can remember the work of Giotto, called to court by Azzone Visconti . Among the various works described by the chroniclers of the time we can mention the fresco of the illustrious Men with mythological theme, modeled on his work in the Baroni hall at the Maschio Angioino in Naples, decorated with gold and enamels typical of French Gothic painting :

«These figures of golden and blue enamels are distinguished by one of such beauty and such artistic perfection that can not be found anywhere else in the world»

Among the examples of civil architecture, although for the use of religious power, we must finally mention the Archbishop’s palace. As for the nearby palace, the alterations of the various periods have almost completely obliterated the original construction commissioned by Ottone Visconti and Giovanni Visconti, archbishops of Milan: among the few gothic remains there are some brick mullioned windows on the facade towards the cathedral and on the west side. Fragments of frescoes from the Giotto school have emerged during some post-World War II restoration works . The fragments of frescoes that survived by chance from the reconstruction of the church of Santa Maria Podone are still preserved in the archbishopric., rediscovered and removed in the twentieth century, depicting a procession of the Three Wise Men, whose attribution to Michelino da Besozzo or his workshop was not possible due to the fragmentary nature of the work, although with drawings that can be traced back to model and sign those of the Libretto degli Anacoreti by Michelino himself .

Together with the development of the city walls, the Viscontis were responsible for the construction of the castle of Porta Giovia, on whose ruins the Sforzesco castle would rise. The fortification was begun in 1368 by Galeazzo II Visconti, while Gian Galeazzo added a fortified external citadel not connected to the central nucleus, which was however connected, together with the construction of the Ghirlanda (a second outer fortification wall connected to the central nucleus of the castle) from Filippo Maria Visconti starting from 1420. Of the ancient Visconti castle, assaulted during the period of the Aurea Repubblica Ambrosiana and completely rebuilt by the dynasty of theSforza, there remains no trace except the basement in serizzo of the Sforzesco castle .

Sculpture
The transition from Romanesque to Gothic marked the abandonment of sculpture as an essence functional exclusively to architectural decoration in favor of autonomous works for which it may be worth a separate analysis from the architectural context. The Milanese gothic sculpture can therefore be divided into two main strands, obviously never completely separated and with reciprocal contaminations: on one side the Tuscan school of Giovanni di Balduccio with his workshop, and on the other the Masters Campionesi, name with which it is indicated a group of sculptors from families originally from Campione d’Italiafrom the style difficult to distinguish and often worked in collaboration, although for the major interpreters of the school it is sometimes possible to accurately indicate the author .

Among the oldest Gothic sculptural monuments in Milan we have the Ottone Visconti funeral monument of an unidentified Maestro Campionese, dating back to the end of the XIII century and preserved in the Milan cathedral. The monument is made of red Verona marble with the structure of the sarcophagus with pitched slopes, clear reference to the Roman funeral monuments in porphyry : the monument, supported by two columns added in the late fourteenth century, presents the figure of the archbishop lying on the front flap. This solution finds extensive precedents in the French statuary of the time, but especially in the funeral monument of Cardinal De Braye of Arnolfo di Cambio at the church of San Domenico diOrvieto . The sarcophagus was the model of inspiration for the Arca of Berardo Maggi, also from the Scuola Nazionale, conserved at the old cathedral of Brescia .

The major work of Giovanni di Balduccio and his workshop is certainly the Ark of St. Peter Martyr, preserved in the Portinari chapel in the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio. The marble tomb of Carrara, with monumental proportions and a complex iconographic content, rests on eight pillars in red Verona marble on which there are as many statues of the Virtues, the sides of the sarcophagus are decorated with eight bas – reliefs of the Episodes of the life of St. Peter Martyrs separated by statues of Saints and Doctors of the Church. The lid is pyramid- shapedtruncated, whose slopes are decorated with reliefs of Saints, crowned by a tabernacle with cusps that contains the statues of the Virgin with Saints Dominic and Peter Martyr .

The composition introduces in the Lombard area the funeral monument to an isolated complex, that is to say of the visible and decorated monument on all four sides : the Arca di sant’Agostino, another of the most famous sculptural monuments of Lombard Gothic, it was in its tripartite decoration marked by statues of saints crowned by a tabernacle certainly inspired by the Balduccian masterpiece, albeit in even more monumental forms .

The masterpiece of Bernabò Visconti by Bonino da Campione is the masterpiece and the highest expression of the sculpture of the Campione Masters, originally located near the church of San Giovanni in Conca. The monument, made from a single block of Carrara marble, consists of a sarcophagus supported by twelve columns of various shapes and sizes: as in the previous work, all four sides of the monument are visible and decorated with reliefs, respectively with ‘ Coronation of the Virgin, the Evangelists, the Crucifixion with saints and the Pietà with saints. The sarcophagus is surmounted by the imposing equestrian statue of Bernabò, once painted, flanked by allegories of the Fortress and Wisdom .

Bonino and his workshop, despite having received the influences of the Milanese work of Giovanni di Balduccio, show a continuation of the Lombard naturalistic tradition in the work, giving prominence to details and minor decorations, while the main character is portrayed in a deliberately solemn and hieratic, far from the intensity and finesse of the Tuscan Balduccian tradition .

In the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio there is the funeral monument of Stephen and Valentina Visconti, an imposing composition where the sarcophagus is inserted in a niche with a cusp supported by twisted columns, attributed to Bonino da Campione for the care of details and decorative motifs . Also in the basilica there is the Ark of the Three Kings, a marble triptych with compartments and the Ancona of the Passion with Scenes from the life of Christ with cusps in the form of a convex ogival shape .

Other interesting fourteenth century sculptural monuments are the Arca di Martino Aliprandi, the Ark of Salvarino Aliprandi and the Arca di Rebaldo Aliprandi, preserved in the church of San Marco, sculptural works with a high attention to the details of Lombard naturalism attributed to unspecified Masters Campionesi . Also in the same church is the Funeral Monument of Lanfranco Settala, a late fourteenth-century monument of the influence of Giovanni di Balduccio in the Milan area .

As for the fifteenth-century late-Gothic sculpture, one can mention the Pietro Torelli funeral monument attributed to Jacopino da Tradate located in the chapel of the same name in Sant’Eustorgio. The sarcophagus rests on six elegant twisted columns, supported by three lions: the chest marked by five niches incorporates the type of funeral monument to Marco Carelli of the same Jacopino at the cathedral of Milan, in both cases with niches ending in cusp. Above the sarcophagus is the late lying and a canopy crowned by a funeral curtain ruled by Angeli, structure taken from the funerary monument by Azzone Viscontiin San Gottardo, crowned by a kiosk with the blessing God the Father inside. The composition, thanks to the softness of the garments and the curtain, is detached from the hieratic and solemn statuary production of the early Lombard Gothic period .

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