|
Basilica of San Marco
|
|
|
Show an other treasure of art and history in Milan:
|
 Mostly represented styles: Gothic - Renaissance - Baroque
St. Mark's Basilica is another rarely visited Milanese monument, despite its great historical importance and rich artistic heritage. Since the demolition of the Church of San Francesco Grande, with a length of 109 meters, it has become the second largest church in Milan after the Cathedral.
HISTORY
The architectural origins of the church are shrouded in uncertainty. According to tradition, the first stone was laid in 1254 by Lanfranco Settala, first general prior of the Augustinian Order. However, there is evidence that suggests the church was founded before that date.
A Venetian codex states that construction of the church began in 1167 and that the building's name was intended as a tribute to Venice, which aided the city of Milan during the struggle against Frederick Barbarossa. However, it is unlikely that this actually occurred.
It should be noted that when the church was built, it was located outside the city walls. This, however, is not surprising, as having churches outside the walls had been a typical feature of Milan since the time of Ambrose.
In fact, it is thought that the first version of the church dates back to a period before 1254 and corresponds to the presence on site of the Zambonins, penitent followers of the Augustinian rule, which included Lanfranco Settala himself, and who joined the Augustinian Order in 1256.
This first version of the church is thought to have had a structure similar to the late Romanesque one that Basilica of San Simpliciano had at the time, that is, it was a hall church with all the naves of more or less equal height, and with the two arms of the transept comprising two naves, also of equal height. According to some, this first phase could have lasted from the end of the twelfth century to 1254, while others believe it may have begun as early as the thirteenth century.
The second phase, initiated by Settala, brought such a significant change of direction that its beginning (1254) is considered the date of its foundation. Following the Cistercian canons, a large rectangular choir was created (corresponding to the first span of the current presbytery), six chapels were added on the eastern sides of the two arms of the transept with pointed cross vaults, and the windows were moved.
In 1288, the convent of San Marco associated with the church was the third largest in Milan in terms of number of friars.
In the first half of the fourteenth century, it was decided to make the church a three-apse church. This was achieved by transforming the two transept chapels bordering the central apse into lateral apses. The cross vaults of the two transept arms also correspond to this phase.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the bell tower was built, over what was then the Chapel of St. Mary or the left lateral apse, depending on the actual sequence of the modifications. At this time, the chapel was divided in two by a partition to support the weight of the bell tower. The front part of this chapel is now the Chapel of San Carlo.
The first chapel on the south side of the main body of the church, the Cusani Chapel, is documented from 1345.
Around 1350 the church must have had a basilica layout comprising three naves, each with at least five spans, two chapels on the south side (corresponding to the sixth and seventh chapels of those present today), three apses, and two additional chapels on the east side of each transept arm. The walls of the central nave featured tall Gothic single-lancet windows. The complex also included a sacristy, two cloisters (the sources disagree here, as some say the second cloister was built in the fifteenth century), guesthouses and dormitories for the friars, a scriptorium, and various armories where the codices owned by the monastery were kept.
In the second half of the fourteenth century, the Church of San Marco benefited from significant donations from the Visconti family and other prominent Milanese families. This made it possible to lengthen the nave by five spans and build the façade (which, however, was never completed), the design of which is attributed to a certain Menclozzo. The new spans, at least those of the central nave, were not vaulted, but rather trussed. Furthermore, the new spans were built slightly longer than the existing ones. The interior of the church thus took on an overall ungainly appearance, with ten spans delimited by round pillars, five of which in the central nave were vaulted and five with exposed trusses.
During the fifteenth century, the second cloister was built, which was unfortunately demolished under Fascism to make way for the new Parini High School.
In 1469, the cemetery in front of the church was deconsecrated to make way for the Martesana canal.
Also in the fifteenth century, the presbytery was expanded with the addition of a second span and the creation of a new polygonal apse, later modernized in the seventeenth century.
The side chapels of the right nave were also standardized, consisting of a square room and a polygonal apse (most of the chapels subsequently lost this structure).
Many of the modifications made to the church during the fifteenth century are attributed to the brothers Pietro and Giovanni Solari, who left a significant mark on Milanese architecture of the period.
In the sixteenth century, the convent of San Marco underwent a period of crisis, which was overcome only with the transition to the second half of the century. Between 1555 and 1557, the first cloister was rebuilt. The Gothic single-lancet windows in the walls of the central nave were replaced by tall, low-arched openings.
The octagonal domes that replaced the original Solarian roofs in the square spaces of the first five chapels also date back to this century. The first chapel to be modernized (and brought to its current form) was the Foppa Chapel, completed in 1520, the first one starting from the entrance.
It should be noted that in the sixteenth century, the left side of the church contained only altars with their associated painted wall decorations, not proper chapels.
The seventeenth century was a century of important changes for the Church of San Marco.
In 1618, the dedication of the third chapel in the right transept was changed from Saint Stephen to the new Augustinian saint Thomas of Villanova. In the same year, the fresco decoration of the vault was redone by the Fiamminghini Brothers.
In the first half of the seventeenth century, the pictorial decoration of the presbytery and choir was completely redone, with Bartolomeo Roverio, known as Genovesino, and the Fiamminghini Brothers responsible for the frescoes, and Camillo Procaccini, Giovanni Battista Crespi, known as Cerano, and Genovesino again responsible for the large paintings on the walls.
During this period, the Fiamminghini Brothers also had the first cloister frescoed. Unfortunately very little of these frescoes, still quite visible in 1935, remain today.
During the same period, the large Chapel of the Crucifix, now known as the Chapel of the Pietà, was also built by merging the two outermost chapels of the northern transept. It had been commissioned half a century earlier by Tommaso Marini, Duke of Terranova, and for a long time it was home to an important Confraternity of the Crucifix. Its decoration was completed in the 1650s and 1660s.
The carved solid wood choir stalls in the apse were installed between 1620 and 1630.
In 1635, construction began on the new, large, monumental sacristy, the current one, which was completed around 1645.
The period between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between 1690 and 1714, saw the implementation of many important changes to the general structure of the church, which gave it its current appearance. The interior was radically modernized in Baroque style. The circular Gothic pillars were enlarged to form cruciform pillars. All the spans were covered with vaults. Furthermore, the two pillars closest to the presbytery were demolished to create a large dome above the two joined spans. These changes were designed by architects Castelli and Quarantini and carried out by master builders Fontana and Ratto.
The modifications were completed by widening the sixteenth-century windows, replacing the rose window on the façade with a lower rectangular window (because the original rose window was now above the vaults and therefore no longer able to illuminate the interior of the church), adding a cornice along the entire interior perimeter and creating the rich stucco decorations.
The entrance arches to the side chapels were also symmetrical, dividing them into bays, and for the same reason, squares were painted on the left wall around the various altars.
In 1787, the Church of San Marco became a parish church, but the structure of the convent remained intact.
With the arrival of Napoleon's French forces in 1796, the monastery was suppressed, and the Augustinians abandoned the church. The convent was transformed first into barracks, then into a military hospital. The church, however, was even used as a stable.
The last major renovation of the church dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century, when architect Carlo Maciachini, in keeping with the fashions of the time, wanted to restore the façade to the original late medieval style in which Menclozzo had conceived it, also because the façade appeared rather ungainly and untidy. Maciachini thus created a neo-Gothic façade (completed in 1873), approximately four meters taller than the previous one and pleasing to the eye, although a bit overdone. The large central rose window and the mullioned windows alongside it were restored, and triple lancet windows were created above the two side entrances. Above, the façade was given a triple cornice with intertwined flame arches underneath, inspired by the original medieval ones above the central portal.
In 1885, thanks to Giuseppe Mongeri, the bell tower, which had remained unfinished since its construction, was finally completed. It was lengthened by adding a tall Neo-Gothic cornice similar to those added to the façade by Maciachini and a conical spire imitating those typical of Lombard Gothic architecture.
It is worth noting that the structures corresponding to the convent of San Marco were long used to provide assistance to the poor and needy. In 1784, the Austrian government transformed parts of the convent into the Casa del Lavoro Volontario (House of Volunteer Labor), which later became the Casa d'Industria (House of Industry) from 1808 to 1815, and later the Pia Casa San Marco (Pious House of San Marco) until 1930, when the second cloister and half of the first were demolished to build the Parini High School. From 1839, the former Convent of San Marco was also the temporary headquarters of the Institute of the Blinds of Milan.
STRUCTURE
The Basilica of San Marco has a complex structure, the result of its history, and is part of an even more riculated complex that includes what remains of what was once the Convent of San Marco.
The church itself has a main body divided into three naves, a transept with very broad, projecting arms, and a very long choir ending in a polygonal apse. The south side features numerous chapels of varying sizes and shapes.
Above the intersection between the main body and the transept, protecting the Baroque dome, is a circular tiburium with a lantern.
Much of the basilica is made of exposed brick. The exceptions are the chapels on the south side, whose walls are plastered.
The bell tower is located at the rear of the north arm of the transept, on the side adjacent to the choir. It has a square plan and is divided into sections decorated at the top by cornices of hanging arches. The bell chamber has a large mullioned window on each side. As previously explained, the bell tower was extensively remodeled in the nineteenth century, and the tall spire is recent.
The choir and the southern transept are characterized by high external buttresses (the northern transept, however, is incorporated into other structures).
The façade of the southern transept features two groups of windows. At the top, a central bifor flanked by two single-lancet windows. Below, in the western half, are two single-lancet windows and an oculus above them. Note that the upper windows are located above the internal vaults and therefore do not illuminate the interior. This demonstrates that they were created before the vaults, after which the lower windows were added.
The left side of the church is flat and is visible only from inside what remains of the first cloister. The facade of the northern arm of the transept was instead erased by the construction of the monumental sacristy, which doubles the length of the transept arm, and of other service buildings.
The basilica's current façade can be described as a blend of original Gothic elements and Neo-Gothic elements resulting from Maciachini's restoration. Vertically, it is punctuated by four pilasters, whose position reflects the internal division into naves. Horizontally, the façade is divided into two orders, emphasized by the presence of natural stone on the lower order (at the level of the pilasters, the portal, a horizontal band closing the lower order, and the plinth). The upper order, however, is made entirely of brick. This division was already present originally.
The portal is a Gothic arch, although very shallow. Of great value is the stone architrave, attributed to Bonino da Campione and therefore dating back to the fourteenth century, which features seven panels depicting Christ the Judge (in the center), Saint Augustine (on the far left), Saint Ambrose, and the Four Evangelists in the remaining panels. The mosaic in the lunette, depicting the Madonna and Child between Saint Augustine and Saint Mark, is recent, having been created in 1965.
The two side entrances lack portals. Above them, however, are two large, richly decorated terracotta triforas within rectangular panels.
The upper order is characterized by the large rose window in the center and the two biforas placed below it on the sides. These were also present originally, so much so that some parts of them come from the original ones, which were preserved for a long time. The lower edge of the upper order, in the central section, features a band of original Gothic overlapping arches.
Immediately below the rose window is a terracotta panel with three niches containing three statues depicting Saint Augustine, Saint Mark, and Saint Ambrose. They date back to at least the fourteenth century or may be older than the façade itself, ie come from another structure in the city.
The two oculi within the square terracotta panels in the two lateral sections of the upper order are original, except for the central decoration, an invention of Maciachini.
At the top, the façade terminates with a triple cornice, the fruit of Maciachini's creativity, the lower of which features intertwined flame-shaped arches. At the apex of each pilaster strip and at the top, he placed a small aedicule containing the statue of the Madonna (the one at the top) and of saints. However, the two lateral ones were lost during the war.
The interior of the basilica is a Latin cross plan with three naves separated by large cruciform pillars connected by round arches. The vaults of the spans are barrel vaults with lunettes in the central nave, and cross vaults in the side naves.
Towards the central nave, the pillars feature pilasters with partially gilded stucco capitals of the composite Ionic-Corinthian order. Between the capitals and the vaults, along the entire length of the central nave and also in the presbytery, choir, and counterfaçade, two cornices separated by an empty band extend. The upper cornice is significantly protruding and supported by a corbel of partially gilded acanthus leaves.
The lunettes of the central nave vault are occupied by large Baroque windows, which, however, being so high up, do not allow the church to be particularly bright. It should be noted that the large rose window on the counterfaçade is located above the vaults and therefore does not contribute to the illumination.
In the central section, the counterfaçade is occupied at the bottom by a large Baroque carved solid wood wind break. Above, there is a large, richly decorated stucco cornice flanked by two lions. It is currently empty.
The sides of the counterfaçade are dominated by the two large triple lancet windows.
The space in front of the presbytery, corresponding to what were originally two spans of the central nave, is occupied by the large, slightly oval Baroque dome (with its long axis running longitudinally). It has no tambour; there is only a cornice at the base, similar in structure to the one running along the central nave. The dome is divided into eight segments delimited by double flat ribs. At the base of each segment is a window, with four real windows and four simulated ones alternating.
The top of the dome is occupied by a lantern with large windows.
The dome's pendentives are filled with large plaster high reliefs depicting the four evangelists.
Note, on the sides of the dome, four simulated windows complete with festoon decorations like the windows of the nave.
All the structures of the nave are embellished with partially gilded Baroque stucco decorations:
- The keystones of the spans are oak-leaf-shaped and are all different. The four bases of each vault are decorated with stucco depicting acanthus leaves.
- The large windows in the lunettes are surrounded by a sumptuous mixtilinear frame with a small canopy above. Beneath this is an enlarged shell from which festoons branch out, encircling the window.
- The large frame on the counterfaçade echoes the structure of the windows, but here the shell is replaced by the Augustinian coat of arms (recognizable by the pierced heart above the book).
- The arches of the central nave are underlined by golden frames with a small frame at the top with festoons and acanthus leaves.
- The double ribs of the dome contain a garland and are connected by garlands. A garland also surrounds the opening of the lantern.
- The windows of the dome are surrounded by an elaborate frame characterized at the top by a swallowtail motif with alternatively a shell or a scroll in the centre.
The last left arch of the central nave houses a neoclassical choir loft containing the organ. It is uncertain when the choir loft was built. According to tradition, the choir, and in particular the decorative panels of the balustrade, were created between 1711 and 1714. However, stylistic considerations suggest that the current choir loft was built in the early nineteenth century, perhaps during the organ renovation by Eugenio Biroldi, completed in 1819. It should be noted that there were originally two choir lofts, with a second, dismantled in 1915, located on the other side, opposite the first. The gilded panels of the balustrade illustrate episodes from the Old Testament.
What was said about the choir loft also applies to the pulpit, located on the third left pillar starting from the presbytery. The carved wooden telamons that support it are probably an exception. They are thought to be recycled material dating back to a period between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
The two arms of the transept are covered by a cross vault with semicircular ribs. The sails of the vault of the southern arm still show traces of decorative frescoes. In the northern arm, however, the ribs still retain their Cosmatesque motif decorations.
Apart from this, the two arms are very different today. The southern arm includes the oldest elements in the church, particularly parts of sarcophagi and medieval funerary monuments that were demolished and partly dispersed under San Carlo and then under Joseph II of Austria.
At the end of the transept is the Ark of Lanfranco Settala, a man of the same name as the founder of the convent and close to Giovanni Visconti. The monument, attributed to Giovanni di Balduccio due to its high artistic value, retains part of the original polychrome. Lanfranco Settala is depicted in a chair, before a crowd of listeners, both lay and cleric. He is then depicted a second time above, on his deathbed, watched over by two deacons. Two side niches depict Saint Agnes and Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
In the lower section of the western wall of the right transept are three sarcophagi, also from the fourteenth century.
- Sarcophagus of the Three Kings: It features a single large panel depicting three scenes: on the left, the Madonna and Child with the eldest of the Three Kings kneeling before her; in the center, the other two Kings; and on the right, the two clients accompanied by Saint Lawrence, an apostle saint, and Saint Francis (or an Augustinian). There are also two side niches: in the left niche, Saint John the Baptist (or perhaps Isaiah) with a scroll; and in the right niche, an evangelist, Matthew or Mark.
- Sarcophagus of Martino Aliprandi: The front panel is divided into three compartments and two side niches. The left section depicts the Presentation of the deceased and three other figures to the Virgin, in the presence of the patron saints. The central section depicts the Trinity in the form of the Throne of Grace. Unfortunately, the dove was lost in the last century. In the right section, eight disciples listen to the Master at the cathedra.
In the side niches, Saint Augustine can be seen on the left and Saint Mark on the right.
The lower part of the sarcophagus features various decorations, including coats of arms, chiseled away likely at the end of the eighteenth century.
Above the sarcophagus are two statues of deacons. Here too, the coats of arms on the bases have been removed.
- Sarcophagus of Gabriele Bossi: The front features three panels. The central panel depicts the client being presented by Saint Ambrose and Saint John the Baptist to the Virgin and Child. The two side panels feature two noble emblems in the form of busts resembling the two saints, against a background of plant-themed decorations. On the sides are two small pillars decorated with reliefs depicting cherubs, amphorae, and grape vines. Other plant-themed decorations are also present on the lower panel.
Page under construction!
If you are interested in a guided tour of this monument send an email!
Categories: Churches / Religious buildings
Piazza San Marco, 2, 20121 Milano |
Further pictures of the Basilica of San Marco in the section Photography |