Gothic art in Milan denotes the city's artistic period at the turn of the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 15th century. The Gothic style, initially introduced into Milanese territory by Cistercian monks, was the main artistic style of the vast patronage and self-celebrating agenda of the Visconti family, lords of Milan, whose rule over the city is usually associated with the Milanese Gothic period.
Historical background
As a conventional date of the beginning of the Gothic period in the territory of the seignory of Milan, the Visconti family's rise to power in 1282 is often given.. Thus, the spread of the new artistic trends from beyond the Alps came later than in central Italy, where Cistercian Gothic had already produced almost a century earlier the Abbey of Fossanova (1187) and the Abbey of Casamari (1203).. This delay in the introduction of the Gothic style in the Milanese area can be explained by the strong and deep-rooted presence of Romanesque architecture, also by virtue of the link between this architecture and the Empire, which was not for nothing overcome only with the new political course of the Visconti seigniory..
The date, however, is only approximate since the first example of Gothic art appeared in Milan by Cistercian monks in the first half of the 13th century: in 1221 the abbey of Chiaravalle was consecrated by Bishop Enrico Settala. At the same time, the Gothic style did not spread in an appreciable way in the territory, with stylistic features strongly influenced by Romanesque, until the work of Azzone Visconti between 1329 and 1339, who introduced artists from Pisa and Florence to his court...
The extensive program of support for the arts inaugurated by Azzone Visconti was continued by his successor Bernabò Visconti, but especially by Gian Galeazzo: under his lordship the largest Italian Gothic building site for the construction of the new city cathedral was inaugurated. For this work, which in the duke's mind would have been monumental and grandiose, architects and artists from all over Europe were called to Milan: the continuous confrontation between local and foreign workers helped to bring to maturity the Lombard Gothic style, which before then had been anchored to the strong 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, Milan's artistic splendor resumed vigor under Filippo Maria Visconti, who in the first half of the 15th century transformed the Milanese court into one of the major centers of Italian humanism, calling to his service personalities such as Francesco Filelfo, Pier Candido Decembrio, Gasparino Barzizza and Antonio da Rho. In the last years of the Visconti seigniory, similarly to what happened in Florence, there were the first hints of the new Renaissance art with the work of Masolino da Panicale in Castiglione Olona..
The conclusion of the Gothic period is thus indicatively made to coincide with the collapse of the Visconti seigniory in 1447, with a late Gothic style that would be grafted onto the early central Italian Renaissance developments giving rise to the Lombard Renaissance...
Religious architecture
The introduction of Gothic art: the abbeys
In Milan, as in other places, the Gothic style was introduced by Cistercian monks from France: the earliest example of Gothic art in Milan is the Abbey of Chiaravalle, built from the first half of the 13th 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 18th century: for example, of the Gothic façade only the upper order in terracotta remains, decorated with an oculus and a bifora enclosed in the profile of the gabled roof decorated with Lombard bands..
The church, built respecting the architectural indications for Cistercian churches provided by St. Bernard, can be defined by its structure and part of the decoration as a compromise between thirteenth-century Lombard architecture and Cistercian Gothic, that is, the first building to break with the Romanesque tradition and to introduce, albeit with forms much mitigated by the Lombard tradition, the forms of Gothic style..
The first interventions to bridge the transition between Romanesque and Gothic were the work on the southern cloister of the church, with pointed brick arches supported by twin stone columns. However, the most notable and most distinctive Gothic architectural intervention in the abbey was the construction of the lantern tower: the tower is octagonal in shape and rests on the square-plan presbytery to which it is connected through the use of pendentives with descending arches. The octagonal tower consists of three vertical orders that narrow as it proceeds upward: the tower is decorated with alternating biforas, monoforas and quadriforas in which terracotta and white marble decorations alternate to create a contrast of colors..
Inside, the most interesting pictorial decorations include fragments of fourteenth-century frescoes of the Evangelists in the space of the dome and the sixteen figures of Saints, by an author identified as the First Master of Chiaravalle.. In the lower part of the dome, on the other hand, are the Stories of the Virgin, a refined and elegant composition of Giottesque style attributed to Stefano Fiorentino and based on the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine..
Founded in 1176, much of Viboldone Abbey was built between the late 13th and 14th centuries. The brick facade, completed in 1348, has a gabled structure bordered by hanging arches and is divided vertically into three partitions defined by buttresses. The portal has a rich marble decoration with sculptures of the Madonna and Child among Saints of the Campionese school and is sided by two hanging aedicules and two narrow monoforas with cusped frames in terracotta; the decoration of the upper order consists of a circular window and three biforas, of which the two side ones are purely decorative as they do not lead onto the lower aisles. The interior is divided into three rib-vaulted naves..
Subsequent to the mid-1400s is the interior pictorial decoration: the oldest work is the fresco of the Madonna and Child with Saints in the apse by an anonymous Lombard master with Tuscan influences. Also on the apse walls is the Last Judgment by Giusto dei Menabuoi in which the scheme of Giotto's Last Judgment at the Scrovegni Chapel is taken up.. Finally, mention can be made of the Stories from the Life of Christ by an anonymous Lombard painter in which Lombard naturalistic accuracy is influenced by Giusto dei Menabuoi's use of chiaroscuro, and the Madonna Enthroned among Saints by Michelino da Besozzo..
Although outside the municipal territory, undoubtedly related to the city is the abbey of Morimondo, which, as with the abbeys just mentioned, came into being in the first half of the 12th century due to the arrival of Cistercian monks from France. Also in this case one is confronted, in the original remaining parts of the church, with a very primitive Gothic style, discernible, for example, in the slender proportions when compared with those of Romanesque art. The facade is in exposed terracotta with biforas and a rose window, made in a very simple manner as dictated by the rules of Cistercian architecture..
The Mirasole Abbey complex, among the few Lombard examples of fortified religious architecture, was founded in the 13th century, while the church dates from the late 14th century. The façade is in terracotta with very simple decorations, consisting of a rose window, two monoforas, and a lowered-arch terracotta portal; the interior has a single-nave hall ending in a quadrangular apse where the Assumption of the Virgin is frescoed by an anonymous painter probably related to the style of Michelino da Besozzo..
The Visconti period
In the early 14th century Lord Azzone Visconti inaugurated a full-fledged program of patronage that had its centerpiece in Gothic architecture. Among the earliest achievements is the church of San Gottardo in Corte, built as a ducal chapel dedicated to the patron saint of the gout that would affect Azzone, though greatly remodeled in appearance in the 18th century.. Of the original exterior appearance, the octagonal bell tower and the semi-octagonal apse are preserved: the decoration is made by alternating terracotta elements, already typical of Lombard Romanesque architecture, and white marble elements.. The outstanding element of the complex is the octagonal bell tower attributed to Francesco Pegorari from Cremona: the use of terracotta is prevalent in the lower levels of the bell tower to leave room for white marble in the higher parts up to the crowning, probably taken from the lantern tower of Chiaravalle Abbey and at the top of the Torrazzo of Cremona..
The interior, according to Galvano Fiamma's chronicles of the time, was completely frescoed by Giotto, called to Milan by Azzone Visconti, and his school: of the cycle of paintings only the Crucifixion remains nowadays, attributed by some directly to the Tuscan master,. while according to another hypothesis some features of the painting, such as realism and attention to detail, would suggest an anonymous, though extraordinary, master of the Giotto sphere with Lombard influences..
The church of San Cristoforo sul Naviglio is composed of the union of two buildings dating from the late 12th century and the late 14th century, respectively. The façade, which is also divided in two, has on the left a pointed arch portal in terracotta with a rose window inscribed in the arch, according to some interpretations in a Lombard style of the side portal of the church of Santa Maria della Spina in Pisa, while on the right there is another pointed arch portal that is less decorated but of more slender proportions and sided by two windows with pointed arches. On both sides of the facade are remnants of frescoes. Inside, the right side of the church has a rectangular-shaped hall with a wooden roof and semicircular apse, while the left side has a cross-ribbed roof with monoforas on the wall that provide lighting. Fragments of frescoes visible in the church include the Crucifixion of the Zavattari...
To the second half of the 12th century dates the church of San Lorenzo in Monluè, built by the Humiliati order in a very simple style probably borrowed from Cistercian architecture. The façade is very slender in exposed terracotta, and the portal has a round arch surmounted by a mock prothyrum sided by two narrow monoforas. The church bell tower, with a square plan, consists of four horizontal orders: the top floor is decorated with biforas with arches resting on stone columns.. The simple interior has a single nave and originally had a wooden truss roof: on the walls are remnants of frescoes on the theme of plant elements, typical of Lombard pictorial decoration in the early 14th century..
The church of St. Mark was founded in the late 12th century by Augustinian monks; however, heavy interventions undergone by the church since the 16th century have largely distorted its appearance, which was minimally recovered in the exterior with the 19th-century restorations by Carlo Maciachini.. Of the original structure, the broken-line structure marked vertically by buttresses can be seen today: also original are the terracotta rose window and the white marble portal surmounted by three statues of Saints Augustine, Mark and Ambrose.. To the early 14th century dates the quadrangular masonry bell tower, which takes up one of the typical architectural models of the Milan area of the time already used, for example, in the abbey of Mirasole and the Arengario of Monza..