View another treasure of Milan's art and history:
|
Church of San Bernardino alle Ossa
|
|
|
Search by name:
|
 Mostly represented styles: Baroque
The Church of San Bernardino alle Ossa has gained increasing notoriety in recent years, thanks to its ossuary and its location, close to Fontana square (to which its rear faces), just a few minutes' walk from the Cathedral. Consequently, more and more tourists, including foreigners, are visiting it.
It should be noted that the current church is the third version of the church.
HISTORY
The history of the church begins in 1145 (1127 according to other sources), when, in an area called Brolo and then occupied only by vegetable gardens, orchards and woods (from which the Basilica of San Nazaro in Brolo also took its name), a Milanese nobleman named Gotifredo da Bussero had a large hospital for lepers built at his own expense. The hospital was built near the Basilica of Santo Stefano Maggiore.
Since there was an obligation to bury those who died in hospitals in separate cemeteries, in 1184 the prior of the hospital obtained permission to create in front of the nearby basilica a cemetery reserved for those who died in it.
It is believed that an ossuary had been erected next to the Basilica of Santo Stefano as early as 1210, to gather the bones of the dead exhumed from the cemetery. In 1268, permission was granted for the construction of a small church (the first version), dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, Saint Sebastian, and Saint Ambrose, to house the remains of the priors and brothers who ran the hospital.
Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of the Disciples (or, more precisely, the Confraternity of the Disciplinati), the first lay confraternity in Milan, had been founded at the Basilica of Santo Stefano. It was particularly dedicated to the care of the sick and those condemned to death. In exchange for the custody of the ossuary, in 1430 the confraternity was granted permission to build its own oratory above the church, by raising the church by one floor (two-story churches have now almost completely disappeared; the only one known to this writer is the Church of Sant'Agata in Oggiono).
Saint Bernardino of Siena, canonized in 1450, was also a member of the Disciplini and was thus made the patron saint of the confraternity.
In December 1642, the bell tower of the adjacent basilica collapsed, overwhelming and destroying both the ossuary and the church of the Disciplini.
The church and the oratory above it were immediately rebuilt, and were completed in 1643 (the second version of the church), designed by Carlo Buzzi, architect of the Fabbrica del Duomo.
In 1652 the hospital commissioned by Gotifredo da Bussero was closed by order of the administration of the Ospedale Maggiore, to which it had been attached about two centuries earlier.
The reconstruction of the ossuary, however, was delayed due to lack of funds and could only resume in 1690, and was completed in 1695 when Sebastiano Ricci was recalled from Bologna to paint the dome and the pendentives.
In 1712, a serious fire severely damaged the church, destroying its furnishings and the confraternity's archives. The Disciplini then decided to build a new, larger church (the third and current version of the church) with an octagonal plan, transforming the old church into the atrium of the new one, according to a design by Carlo Giuseppe Merlo. The new church was completed in 1754.
In 1786, the Disciplini confraternity was abolished and its property passed to the Royal Property Agency. In 1929, with the signing of the Lateran Pacts, it returned to the Ecclesiastical Authority.
The church and ossuary were completely restored between 1998 and 2002.
STRUCTURE
From the outside, the Church of San Bernardino alle Ossa is almost unrecognizable as a church, especially from the front, as the façade (Fig. 1) resembles that of a standard residential building, with windows and doors arranged regularly on three levels.
On the ground floor is the main entrance door, larger but surrounded by a simple cornice. To either side of it are two side entrances, with rich Baroque portals with volute-shaped gables and statues of Saint Bernardino of Siena and Saint Sebastian within the tympanum. Further outside are two rectangular windows with sumptuous Baroque cornices. The first and second floors each have five windows, all surrounded by Baroque-style cornices, more sumptuous on the first floor, more sober on the second. The same type of windows is also present on the front of the left façade. It was not possible to find information on what type of rooms or spaces these windows open to.
From the front, only the presence of a large octagonal tiburium at the top, with an elliptical oculus inscribed within an octagonal window on each side and an octagonal lantern, also with a window on each side, suggests that this is a church.
From the rear, the presence of the apse and choir, protruding from the main body, and the small bell tower connected to the central body by a walkway, make it more evident that the building is a church.
Entering the church, one enters an atrium, created from the much smaller previous church. Above the side entrances, two very darkened paintings are visible in the lunettes, about which no information could been found.
The atrium is divided into three transverse spans, with the walls punctuated by pilasters with partially gilded capitals.
On the left wall as you enter, hangs a canvas depicting the Crucifix with Saints Francis and Anthony of Padua, believed to be the work of the Baroque painter Juan Pantoja de la Cruz.
On the wall opposite to the entrance, to the left of the entrance to the main body of the church, is a niche with a rich Baroque frame containing a statue of Saint Rita of Cascia. In front of it is a beautiful wavy-shaped kneeler.
To the right of the atrium is a space that probably coincided with the presbytery of the previous church. On the back wall of this space is an altar with a statue of the Pilgrim Madonna. Behind it is a plaque with the names of those who fell during the Ethiopian War of 1935. On the wall to the right of this altar, recessed into the wall, beneath the window, is a bas-relief with the effigy of Saint Ambrose. On the ceiling is a stucco bas-relief with cherubs among the clouds within a mixtilinear frame.
To the left of the altar of the Pilgrim Madonna is the passage leading to the ossuary (see below).
Crossing the atrium and climbing a couple of steps, you reach the church's octagonal nave (Fig. 2). It is painted in pastel shades of blue and light gray, which contributes to give the church luminosity. Its walls are punctuated by double pilasters with composite-style capitals placed at the corners and are separated from the vault by two cornices separated by a band, with the upper cornice decidedly more pronounced.
Of the nave's eight sides, one corresponds to the entrance to the nave, the opposite one to the presbytery and the two lateral ones to the two side chapels. The other sides are occupied in the upper part by small choir lofts, two of which house organs. The lower part, on the presbytery side, serves as an antechamber to service areas, on the side near the entrance houses a confessional.
The nave is covered by a round dome divided into eight segments (Fig. 4). Each segment contains a large ellipsoidal window surrounded by a sumptuous baroque frame enriched with gilded decorative elements. The lower sections, connecting the dome to the walls, are highlighted by mixtilinear frames also enriched with gilding.
In the nave, other noteworthy features include:
- In the niche between the left chapel and the high altar, above the door in the back wall, within a carved and gilded wooden frame with an architectural structure, is a panel painting depicting a Madonna of the Passion and Saints, including Saint Ambrose, Saint Roch, and Saint Bernardino of Siena, attributed by some sources to the painter Gabriel Bossius (1513) (Fig. 5). In the lunette is a Madonna adoring the Child.
- Also in the niche is what may have been a pulpit (Fig. 6). Entirely carved in wood, the base is composed of a central support and four busts of winged angels connected by draperies. The pulpit's balustrade is decorated with bas-reliefs depicting scenes from the New and Old Testaments.
- In the corresponding niche on the right side, there too is a panel painting, inside an identical frame. Unfortunately, no information on this second painting was found.
The two side chapels have identical structures: they are moderately deep, have a barrel vault, and are separated from the nave by a thick balustrade of dark polychrome marble and partially gilded wrought iron that extends forward toward the interior of the nave. In the side walls there are doors that lead to service areas. Both chapels house a large polychrome marble altar in the late Baroque style, characterized by a clear predominance of black and dark red tones.
The lunette of the back wall in both chapels is occupied by stained-glass windows that, in the writer's opinion, appear to be very recent.
The left altar is dedicated to Saint Rosalia. The altarpiece is by the Biella painter Giovanni Antonio Cucchi and depicts Saint Rosalia with an Angel.
The altarpiece is located within an altar with an architectural structure in which, starting from a high base, two cruciform pillars, flanked by two small columns on the outside, all in marble with composite capitals, support an entablature above which is a baroque pediment flanked by two cherubs and enriched with gilded decorations in the form of cherub heads, acanthus leaves, and garlands.
The altarpiece is located in the center of the altar, within a mixtilinear frame.
On either side of the altar are two paintings by Paolo da Caylina the Younger (16th century), originally from the demolished church of San Giovanni Decollato alle Case Rotte.
The altar on the right has an almost identical structure. In this case, the altarpiece, by the late Baroque painter Federico Ferrario, depicts Saint Mary Magdalene in the House of the Pharisee.
Since 1768, this chapel has housed the family tomb of some of Christopher Columbus's maternal descendants (Pietro Antonio and Giovanni di Portogallo Colon, Counts of Puela and Veragua). The Baroque frames on the side walls of the chapel feature the family coats of arms.
The presbytery (Fig. 3) is raised a few steps above the nave and is also bordered by a thick polychrome marble balustrade, convex in the center. Two large paintings hang on the side walls: on the left, Saint Charles administering the Eucharist to the plague victims, and on the right, Saint Ambrose praying during the Battle of Parabiago. Both are the work of Abbot Gerolamo Ottolini, who probably painted them at the beginning of the second half of the eighteenth century.
The high altar is in the same style as those in the side chapels, but is more colorful, featuring also yellow marble to match the gilding of the tabernacle, and a retable, separated from the altar and placed against the back wall of the apse. This retable consists essentially only of the altarpiece's mixed-line frame, richly voluted and embellished with gilded copper details. The altarpiece, traditionally attributed to an uncertain painter named Amadei, depicts a Madonna and Child.
The lower portion of the apse walls is occupied by what were perhaps originally the backs of the choir stalls, the seats of which are no longer present.
Ossuary
A corridor starting from the right side of the atrium leads to the ossuary (Fig. 8), a rectangular chapel conceived as a large memento mori, whose walls were therefore decorated with bones exhumed from the hospital cemetery. It is a two-order chapel, taller than it is wide or long. The earthy brown walls are punctuated by dark gray pilasters with Corinthian capitals. In both orders, between the pilasters are mixtilinear frames filled with various types of bones, held in place by metal mesh, and also the pilasters themselves are decorated with bones. The cup-vaulted ceiling is separated from the walls by two cornices that run along the entire perimeter of the chapel and are in turn separated by a band decorated with skulls.
The chapel altar is located on the left wall as you enter and is protected by a polychrome marble balustrade, convex in the center, creating a small presbytery. Above the altar, inside the wall and surrounded by a sumptuous late-baroque frame of very pale polychrome marble, is a large niche. It contains a statue created in the mid-seventeenth century, during the Spanish domination, depicting Our Lady of Sorrows of Soledad, dressed in a white alb, covered by a black cloak embroidered in gold, with clasped hands, kneeling beside the dead Jesus (Fig. 10).
Notice two references to the Passion of Christ above the frame: on the left, the Chalice of the Last Supper, and on the right, a rooster, a reference to St. Peter's denial of Christ.
The dome and pendentives (Fig. 7) were frescoed in 1693-94 by the Venetian painter Sebastiano Ricci, a precursor to Tiepolo. The vault depicts a Triumph of Souls in a Flight of Angels, while the pendentives depict the Glory of the Four Patron Saints: the Virgin Mary, Saint Ambrose, Saint Sebastian, and Saint Bernardine of Siena. Note the stucco extensions of the frescoes, designed to enhance the illusionistic effect that was fashionable at the time.
In 1738, King John V of Portugal was so impressed by the ossuary chapel that he used it as a model for a chapel he built in Évora, near Lisbon.
The Putridarium
Even more strange, but much less known, the crypt under the church, where the bodies of deceased brethren were put sitting on stone benches. These benches were provided with appropriate wells designed to drain the decomposition liquids, liquids which then converged on a well in the center of the crypt.
If you are interested in a guided tour of this monument send an email!
Categories: Churches / Religious buildings
via Carlo Giuseppe
Merlo, 4 - 20122 Milano |
Further pictures of the Church of San Bernardino alle Ossa in the section Photography |