The Duomo Cathedral

The religious heart and symbol of the city of Milan, the Duomo, dedicated to the birth of the Virgin Mary, stands on the 19th-century square of the same name which houses the bronze statue of Victor Emmanuel II on horseback (Ercole Rosa, 1878). Built in marble in the late Gothic style, its size is spectacular (158 m long and a maximum width of 93 m for a total surface area of over 11,000 square metres). The 17th-century facade is divided into five bays with six buttresses decorated with statues and crowned by spires. The support plinths are decorated with biblical or symbolical reliefs (17th-19th centuries). Above each of the five entrance portals (17th century) is a 17th-century window: the one above the lar­gest portal, with a 1790 balcony, has in turn, like the two adjacent ones, another large 19th century Gothic window above it. The portals are decorated with reliefs created between the 16th and the 17th centuries to drawings by Cerano, while the bronze doors are the work of Italian artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. The sides of the building, built between the 15th and the 18th centuries, are also cadenced by buttresses with spires and tall windows. The part corresponding to the transept has additionally, compared to the rest of the buil­ding, two double buttresses with internal staircases. The top is cadenced by sloping roofs and with an evocative sequence of rampant arches. From the terraces, which provide a splendid view of the city and surrounding plain, the octagonal lantern by Amadeo (15th-16th century) can be admired, surmounted in the 1860's by a spire (108.5 m) on which the gilded statue of the "Madonnina" (small Madonna) by Giuseppe Perego (1774) was later placed. The great

polygonal apse (end of the 14th - beginning of the 15th century) is the oldest part of the Duomo: flanked by the two sacristies, it has three large windows whose thin marble ribbing (early 15th century) form a huge rose-window in each ogive. The sides and the apse of the Duomo offer a comprehensive overview of the art of statues from the 14th to the 19th centuries with more than two

28 The façade of the Duomo and general view of the Piazza

thousand sculptures and as many as 135 spires (the oldest, the Carelli spire, dating back to the early 15th century), mostly by Lombard and other Italian artists, but also by foreign masters.

The interior which, as deemed by Charles Borromeo, reflects the rules of the Counter-Reformation, is in the form of a Latin cross with five naves (the central one is double the width of the others) and comprises a transept with three naves and a presbytery flanked by two rectangular sacristies. The space is divided up by fifty-two gigantic clustered columns most of which are crowned by capitals with niches for statues of saints in turn crowned by pinnacles with statues of prophets. The windows are decorated with polychrome glass windows. The floor in marble and stone, begun in 1585 and only finished in themid-20th century, is decorated with polychrome inlaid patterns.

The counter-façade is dominated by the main central door (17th-19th centuries) with the statues of St. Ambrose and St. Charles on both side and plaque commemorating the two consecrations of the Duomo in 1418 and 1577. A narrow staircase leads to the area of the archaeological excavations which brought to light remains of pre-existing churches and paleochristian relics (4th century).

In the left nave, with altars which date back to various periods (16th-19th centuries) and which house notable Italian works of art (including two marble slabs with figures of apostles of the 12th century and the wooden crucifix carried in a procession by St. Charles during the plague in 1576), there is the 16th-century baptistery, originally situated in the central nave and transferred in the 17th century. The font is an antique Roman trough. The glass windows date back to the 16th century, except for those of "St. Michael the Archangel" and "Stories of St. Ambrose" (20th century).

The right-hand nave houses sarcophagi and sepulchres of archbishops and benefactors (including the "Sarcophagus of Marco Carelli", decorated in 1406 by Jacopino da Tradate) and comprises altars in which important fourth and sixth-century works of art arc placed. Most of the glass windows were made in the 15th century by Lombard, Flemish and Rhenish artists.

The transept, decorated with glass windows, altars, statues and works dating back to various periods (15th-19th centuries), houses in the right-hand nave the memorial to Gian Giacomo Medici, known as "II Medeghino" (Leone Leoni, 1560) and in the left-hand one the "Candelabro Trivulzio" (early 13th century).

In the middle of the Pellegrini presbytery (second half of the 16th century), raised and surrounded by carved wooden choir-stalls, is the sanctuary. The high altar (13th century), consecratedin 1418, has at its top a 16th-century pavilion crowned by a statue of the "Triumph of Christ"beneath which is the tabernacle decorated in relief and supported by four bronze angels. Another tabernacle, at the top of the vault, holds the "HolyNail of the Cross". Beneath the sanctuary we can see the beautiful circular crypt by Pellegrini, which leads to the "Scurolo diS.Carlo" (1606), an octagonal chapel which holds the glass urn with the relics of St. Charles.

The great windows in the apse show the major renovation work carried out during the last century.

On each side of the presbytery arc the twosacristies: the southern sacristy, with a 14th-century portal, and the northern sacristy, whose portal (1389) represents the first sculpture of the Cathedral. Leading off opposite the portal of the first sacristy is the Treasury of the Duomo, which houses exhibits of immense value, such as the silver "Capsella" of the 4th century donated by the Pope to St. Ambrose, ivory objects, gilded and set with precious stones, silver statues and precious tapestries.

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