Lombard Renaissance
The Lombard Renaissance covers Milan and its territories. With the passage of power between the Visconti and the Sforza in the middle of the fifteenth century the transition between the Lombard international Gothic season and the opening towards the new humanistic world was also realized . In the second half of the fifteenth century the Lombard artistic story developed without tears, with influences gradually linked to the Florentine, Ferrara and Paduan ways, as well as references to the rich previous culture. With the arrival of Bramante (1479) and by Leonardo da Vinci (1482) Milan reached absolute artistic summits in the Italian and European scene, demonstrating however the possibility of cohabitation between the artistic avant-gardes, the gothic substratum.
The Visconti
In the first half of the fifteenth century Milan and Lombardy were the Italian region where the international Gothic style followed, so much so that in Europe the expression ouvrage de Lombardie was synonymous with the object of invaluable invoice, referring above all to those miniatures and goldsmiths that were expression of an exquisite courtly, elitist and refined taste .
The contacts with the artistic vanguards of Tuscany and Flanders were however quite frequent, thanks to the network of particularly articulate commercial and dynastic relationships. In the construction of the Milan Cathedral, begun in 1386, French, Burgundian, German and Italian craftsmen worked, developing an international style, especially in the school of sculpture, which was indispensable for the construction of the imposing decorative decoration of the cathedral . Already around 1435 Masolino worked in Castiglione Olona, near Varese, showing the innovations of the use of perspective, but attenuated by an attention to the local figurative culture that made the new message more comprehensible and assimilable.
Francesco Sforza (1450-1466)
After the utopian attempt to restore the municipal institutions to the death of Filippo Maria Visconti with the Ambrosian Republic (1447 – 1450), the passage of power to the Sforza family, with Francesco Maria di Bianca Maria Visconti, almost had the flavor of a legitimate succession, without clear cuts compared to the past .
Even in the artistic field, Francesco’s taste, and in large part of his descendants, aligned himself with the sumptuous, ornate and sumptuously celebratory of the Visconti: many “Visconti” artists were the subject of commissions, such as Bonifacio Bembo . Despite this, the alliance with Florence and the repeated contacts with Padua and Ferrara promoted a penetration of Renaissance language, especially through the exchange of miners.
Architecture
To consolidate his power, Francesco immediately started the reconstruction of the castle of Porta Giovia, the Milanese residence of the Visconti family. In architecture, however, the most significant commitment remained that of the Duomo, while the buildings of the Solari still look to the Gothic tradition or even the Lombard Romanesque .
Filarete
The Florentine Filarete’s stay, starting in 1451, was the first significant Renaissance presence in Milan. The artist, recommended by Piero de ‘Medici, was entrusted with important commissions, thanks to his hybrid style that conquered the Sforza court. In fact, he was an advocate of clear lines, but did not dislike a certain decorative richness, nor did he apply the Brunelleschi’s “grammar of orders” with extreme rigor. He was entrusted with the construction of the tower of the Castle, the Duomo of Bergamo and the Ospedale Maggiore .
In this last work in particular, linked to the will of the new prince to promote his image, we can clearly read the inequalities between the rigor of the basic project, set to a functional division of space and a regular plan, and the lack of integration with the surrounding building fabric minute, due to the over-sizing of the building. The hospital plant is rectangular, a central courtyard divides it into two areas, each one crossed by two internal orthogonal arms that draw eight large courtyards. The rhythmic purity of the succession of round arches of the courtyards, derived from Brunelleschi’s lesson, contrasts an exuberance of terracotta decorations(even though they were largely due to the Lombard continuators) .
The Portinari Chapel
The arrival in the city of more mature renaissance formulations is linked to the commissions of Pigello Portinari, agent of the Medici for their bank branch in Milan. In addition to the construction of a seat of the Medici bank, now lost, Pigello built a family funeral chapel in Sant’Eustorgio which bears his name, the Portinari Chapel, where the relic of the head of Saint Peter Martyr was also found .
The structure is inspired by the Brunelleschiana Sagrestia Vecchia of San Lorenzo in Florence, with a square compartment equipped with a scarsella and covered by a dome with sixteen ribs. Some details in the decoration are also inspired by the Florentine model, such as the frieze of the cherubs or the rounds in the pendentives of the dome, but others move away, marking a Lombard origin. This is the tiburium that protects the dome, the terracotta decoration, the presence of pointed-pointed mullioned windows or the general decorative exuberance. The interior in particular moves away from the Florentine model due to the vibrant richness of decorations, such as the rich embryo of the sloping dome, the frieze with the angels on the drum and the numerous frescoes by Vincenzo Foppa in the upper part of the walls .
Urban planning
The researches in urban planning under Francesco Sforza did not translate into important concrete interventions, but nevertheless produced a singular project of an ideal city, Sforzinda, the first to be completely theorized. The city was described by Filarete in the architectural treaty and is characterized by an intellectual abstraction that disregards the previous scattered indications, of a more practical and empirical approach, described by Leon Battista Alberti and other architects, especially in the context of the urban Renaissance.. The city had a stellar plant, linked to cosmic symbols, and included aggregate buildings without organic or internal logic, so as not to be bound by a road network, which was instead set to a perfectly radial scheme .
Painting
One of the most important pictorial works of the lordship of Francesco Sforza is linked to the Portinari Chapel, frescoed in the upper parts of the walls by Vincenzo Foppa between 1464 and 1468. The decoration, in excellent condition, includes four rounds with Doctors of the Church in the pendentives, eight busts of saints in the oculi at the base of the dome, four Stories of Saint Peter Martyr in the side walls and two large frescoes in the triumphal arch. arch of the counter-façade, respectively an ‘ Annunciation and an’ Assumption of the Virgin .
The painter took particular care of the relationship with architecture, looking for an illusory integration between real space and painted space. The four scenes of stories of the saint have a common vanishing point, placed outside the scenes (in the middle of the wall, on the central mullioned window) on a horizon that falls at eye level with the characters (according to the indications of Leon Battista Alberti). However, it is detached from the classic geometric perspective for the original atmospheric sensibility, which dampens the contours and the geometric stiffness: it is in fact the light that makes the scene humanly real. In addition, a taste for simple but effective and understandable narrative prevails, set in realistic places with characters reminiscent of everyday types, in line with the preferences for the didactic narrative of the Dominicans .
Even in the subsequent works Foppa, I use the perspective medium in a ductile and in any case secondary way compared to other elements. An example is the Pala Bottigella (1480 – 1484), with a spatial layout of Bramante derivation, but saturated with figures, where the accents are placed on the human representation of the various types and on the refraction of light on the various materials. This attention to the optical truth, devoid of intellectualism, was one of the most typical characteristics of the subsequent Lombard painting, also studied by Leonardo da Vinci.
Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1466-1476)
Galeazzo Maria Sforza was certainly attracted by the sumptuousness of Gothic origin and his commissions seemed animated by a desire to do a lot and do it quickly, so among his interests there was not to stimulate an original and updated figurative production, finding it easier to fish in the past. In order to satisfy the numerous requests of the court, nurtured and heterogeneous groups of artists were often formed, such as those who decorated the ducal chapel in the Castello Sforzesco, led by Bonifacio Bembo . In those frescoes, dating back to 1473, despite some sober references to figurative novelties (as in the spatiality of the Annunciationor in the plastic setting of the saints), there is still an archaic background in golden tablet .
The artists who worked for Galeazzo Maria Sforza were never “interlocutors” with the client, but docile performers of his desires .
Architecture
The most significant works of the period developed the taste that led to covering Renaissance architecture with an exuberant decoration, as was partly the case already at the Ospedale Maggiore, with a crescendo that had a first climax in the Colleoni Chapel of Bergamo (1470 – 1476) and a second in the facade of the Certosa di Pavia (from 1491), both by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo with others .
The Colleoni Chapel was built as a mausoleum for the condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, with a plant that once again took over the Old Sacristy of Brunelleschi. The plan is in fact square, surmounted by a dome in wedges with an octagonal drum and a scarsella with the altar, also covered by a small dome. However, the structural clarity was enriched with pictorial motifs, especially on the façade, with the use of a white / pink / purple trichromy and the motif of the lozenges .
The Certosa di Pavia, started in 1396 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who saw only its beginning, was taken up only in the mid-fifteenth century, following in a certain sense the fate of the Milanese ducal family, with long periods of stasis and sudden acceleration, welcoming the most modern suggestions of the artistic panorama. They occupied mainly Guiniforte and Giovanni Solari, who maintained the original plan (plan in Latin cross with three naves and simple masonry brick), enriching only the apsidal part, with a clover closure that is repeated also in the transept arms. The two cloisters with round arches, decorated with exuberant terracotta rings, are reminiscent of the Ospedale Maggiore, while the interior clearly cites the Milan Cathedral .
Sculpture
Also in sculpture the most significant construction site of the period was the Certosa di Pavia. The numerous sculptors involved in the decoration of the façade, not all identified, were subject to evident influences from Ferrara and Bramante. For example, in the relief of the Expulsion of the progenitors (about 1475) attributed to Cristoforo Mantegazza, one notices a graphic sign, sharp angles, unnatural and unbalanced scraps of the figures and a violent chiaroscuro, with results of great expressiveness and originality . In the Resurrection of Lazarus (about 1474) by Giovanni Antonio Amadeoinstead, the setting emphasizes more the depth of the architecture in perspective, with more composed figures but engraved by rather abrupt outlines .
Ludovico il Moro (1480-1500)
In the days of Ludovico il Moro, in the last two decades of the fifteenth century, artistic production in the Milanese duchy continued between continuity and innovation . The tendency towards pomp and ostentation reached its climax, especially on occasions of special court celebrations .
With the arrival of two great masters such as Donato Bramante (from 1477) and Leonardo da Vinci (from 1482), coming respectively from centers such as Urbino and Florence, the Lombard culture underwent a radical turn in the Renaissance sense, though without showy breakages, thanks to a land already ready to receive the news thanks to the openings of the previous period. The two were able to integrate perfectly into the Lombard court and, at the same time, to renew the relationship between artist and client, based now on lively and fruitful exchanges .
The art in the duchy recorded in this period the reciprocal influences between Lombard artists and the two foreign innovators, often working in parallel or crossing .
Architecture
Compared to his predecessor, Ludovico was concerned with making the great architectural sites resume, thanks to the new awareness of their political significance linked to the fame of the city and, consequently, of its prince . Among the most important works, in which the fruitful exchanges between the masters were consumed, were essentially the Cathedral of Pavia, the castle and the square of Vigevano, the tiburio of the Duomo of Milan . Stimulating are the studies on buildings with a central plan, which animated the research of Bramante and fascinated Leonardo, filling pages of its codes with solutions of increasing complexity .
Sometimes a more traditional style continued to be practiced, made of a decorative exuberance set on Renaissance lines . Main work of this taste was the facade of the Certosa di Pavia, executed starting from 1491 by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, who arrived at the first cornice, and completed by Benedetto Briosco. The rather rigid setting, with two overlapping quadrangular bands, is extraordinarily animated by vertical pillars, openings of various shapes, loggias and, above all, by a crowd of reliefs and motifs with polychrome marbles .
Bramante in Milan
Among the first works in which Bramante was measured for Ludovico il Moro there was the reconstruction of the church of Santa Maria near San Satiro (circa 1479-1482), in which the problem of centralized space already emerged. A longitudinal body with three naves was designed, with the same amplitude between the central nave and the transept arms, both covered by massive barrel vaults with painted coffers that evoked the model of Sant’Andrea dell ‘ Alberti. The crossing of the arms has a dome, an unmistakable Bramante motif, but the harmony of the whole was put at risk by the insufficient width of the capocroce who, being unable to extend it, was “elongated” illusionistically, building a fake prospective escape in stucco in a space less than a meter deep, with an illusionary coffered vault .
The other major project that Bramante dedicated himself to was the reconstruction of the Santa Maria delle Grazie tribune, which was transformed in spite of ten works completed by Guiniforte Solari : the Moro wanted to give a more monumental appearance to the Dominican basilica, to make it the burial place of one’s own family . the naves built by the Solari, immersed in the semi-darkness, were illuminated by the monumental tribune at the crossroads of the arms, covered by a hemispherical dome. Bramante also added two large side apses and a third, over the choir, in axis with the naves. The orderly scanning of the spaces is also reflected on the outside in an interlocking of volumes that culminates in the tiburiumthat masks the dome, with a small loggia that links up with the motifs of early Christian architecture and the Lombard Romanesque style .
Painting
On the occasion of his wedding with Beatrice d’Este, Ludovico had the Sala della Balla decorated in the Castello Sforzesco, presetting all the Lombard masters available on the square. Alongside the masters such as Bernardino Butinone and Bernardo Zenale, a crowd of medium and small-caliber masters arrived in Milan, almost completely unknown to historical-artistic studies, who were required to work side by side to quickly set up a sumptuous apparatus, rich in political meanings, but with wide qualitative oscillations that seem to be the last of the client’s concerns .
Bergognone
Between 1488 and 1495 the Lombard painter Bergognone took care of the decoration of the Certosa di Pavia. His production is inspired by Vincenzo Foppa, but also shows strong Flemish accents, filtered probably by the Ligurian contacts. This characteristic was particularly evident in the small-format tables destined to the devotion of the monks in the cells, such as the so-called Madonna del Certosino (1488 – 1490), where light values prevail in a quiet and a little unlit colors. Later the artist abandoned the mother-of-pearl tones accentuating the chiaroscuro passages and adhering to the innovations introduced by Leonardo and Bramante. In the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (about 1490) the stage construction is linked to a clever use of perspective with a lowered viewpoint, even if in the wavy outlines of the figures, however purified and simplified, echoes remain of courtly elegance .
Butinone and Zenale
The Lombard workshops of the time were generally organized according to collective work practices and were gradually invested by the most modern innovations, which were translated into hybrids with local traditions. An excellent example is that of the association between Bernardino Butinone and Bernardo Zenale di Treviglio, who perhaps cooperated respectively as teacher and pupil (but perhaps also simply as associated artists) in works on important commissions. In the Polittico di San Martino (1481-1485), for the church of San Martino a Treviglio, shows an equal division of labor, with a homogenization of personal styles towards a harmonious result. The perspective layout, inspired by Vincenzo Foppa, also reflects the illusionism between the frame and the painted architecture derived from the Pala di San Zeno di Mantegna (1457-1459), with the fake portico where the figures are staggered neatly. The perspective, however, is linked to optical expedients, rather than to a rigorous geometric construction, with the convergence towards a single vanishing point (placed at the center of the central table of San Martino), but without an exact proportionality of the foreshortening in depth. Elements such as garlands or railings enhance the foreground and the figures behind it, while it is swarming, tied to a heritagecourtly gothic, the use of golden decorations .
Bramante painter
Bramante was also a painter, author in Milan of a series of humanistic-themed frescoes on illustrious men, the so-called men of arms of the Visconti-Panigarola family, but also of a famous panel with Christ at the column (c. 1480-1490). In the latter the references to urban culture are evident, with the figure of the suffering Redeemer pushed in the foreground, almost in direct contact with the spectator, with a classic modeling in the naked torso and with evident Flemish reminiscences, both in the landscape and in the meticulous rendering of details and their luminous reflections, above all in the red and blue glows of hair and beard .
First stay of Leonardo da Vinci
Like Bramante, even Leonardo da Vinci was attracted to Lombardy by the job opportunities offered by the policy of energetic expansion promoted by the Sforza. In a famous self-presentation letter of 1482 the artist enumerated in ten points his abilities, ranging from military and civil engineering, to hydraulics to music and art (quoted last, to be exercised “in time of peace “) .
At first, however, Leonardo did not find an answer to his offerings to the Duke, devoting himself to the cultivation of his scientific interests (numerous codes date back to this fruitful period) and receiving a first important commission from a confraternity, who in 1483 asked him and brothers De Predis, who hosted it, a triptych to be exhibited in their altar in the destroyed church of San Francesco Grande. Leonardo painted the central table with the Virgin of the Rocks, a work of great originality in which the figures are set in a pyramid, with a strong monumentality, and with a circular movement of looks and gestures. The scene is set in a shady cave, with light filtering through openings in the rocks in very subtle variations of the chiaroscuro, between reflections and colored shadows, capable of generating a sense of atmospheric binder that eliminates the plastic insulation effect of the figures [ 12].
Finally entered the circle of Sforza, Leonardo was long involved in the construction of an equestrian colossus, which never saw the light. In 1494 Ludovico il Moro assigned him the decoration of one of the smaller walls of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Leonardo created the Last Supper, by 1498. As in the Adoration of the Magipainted in Florence, the artist investigated the deeper meaning of the Gospel episode, studying the reactions and the “motions of the soul” to the proclamation of Christ of the betrayal by one of the apostles. Emotions spread violently among the apostles, from one end of the scene to the other, overwhelming the traditional symmetrical alignments of the figures and grouping them three by three, with Christ isolated at the center (a solitude both physical and psychological), thanks also to the framing of the bright openings in the background and the perspective box. Real space and painted space appear in fact to be illusionistically linked, thanks also to the use of a light similar to the real one of the room, involving the viewer extraordinarily, with a procedure similar to what Bramante experienced in architecture in those years .
A similar principle, of the cancellation of the walls, was also applied in the decoration of the Sala delle Asse in the Castello Sforzesco, covered by an interweaving of arboreal motifs .
A series of portraits date back to the Milanese court, among which the most famous is the Lady with an Ermine (1488-1490). It is almost certainly the favorite of Moro Cecilia Gallerani, whose image, struck by a direct light, emerges from the dark background by making a spiral motion with the bust and the head that enhances the grace of the woman and definitely breaks with the rigid setting of the portraits 15th century “humanistic” .
First half of the sixteenth century
The fall of Ludovico il Moro caused an abrupt interruption of all artistic commissions to a diaspora of the artists. Despite this, the recovery was relatively fast, and the atmosphere in Milan and in the connected territories remained lively. Key episode is the return of Leonardo da Vinci in 1507, until 1513 .
Until the battle of Pavia in 1525 the political situation in the territory of the Duchy of Milan remained uncertain, with numerous armed clashes, after which the Spanish predominance was sanctioned.
Second stay of Leonardo
It was the same French governor of Milan, Charles d’Amboise, who solicited, since 1506, the entry of Leonardo into the service of Louis XII. The following year it was the king himself who specifically asked for Leonardo, who finally agreed to return to Milan from July 1508. The second stay in Milan was a very intense period : he painted the Sant’Anna, the Virgin and the Child with the little lamb, completed, in collaboration with De Predis, the second version of the Virgin of the Rocks and took care of geological problems, hydrographic and urban planning. Among other things, he studied a project for an equestrian statue in honor of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, as the architect of the French conquest of the city .
The Leonardesques
The illustrious examples produced by Leonardo were collected and replicated by a large number of students (direct and indirect), the so-called ” leonardeschi “: Boltraffio, Andrea Solario, Cesare da Sesto and Bernardino Luini among the main ones. Thus, at the beginning of the century, there was a harmonization of taste in the Duchy linked to Leonardo’s style.
The limitation of these artists, however gifted, was the crystallization of the master’s style, without ever being able to equal him or propose an overcoming of his style . The most important merit of these painters was probably to spread, through their travels, the innovative style of Leonardo even in areas foreign to its passage, such as Giovanni Agostino da Lodi in Venice or Cesare da Sesto in southern Italy and Rome [ 18].
The best known of the group was Bernardino Luini, who however adhered to the example of Leonardo only in some works, especially those on wood: the Holy Family of the Ambrosiana Art Gallery, modeled on Sant’Anna, the Virgin and the Child with Leonardo’s little lamb. In the third decade of the century the contact with Venetian works and personal maturation led him to achieve significant results in cycles of frescoes with a pleasant narrative vein, as in the church of San Maurizio at the Maggiore Monastery in Milan, in the sanctuary of the Madonna dei Miracoli in Saronno, and in theChurch of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Lugano. Also interesting is the humanistic cycle already in Villa Rabia at Pelucca near Monza (today at the Pinacoteca di Brera) .
Bramantino
The only notable exception to the dominant Leonardesque style was the activity of Bartolomeo Suardi, known as Bramantino as he trained at the Bramante school. His works are monumental and of great austerity, with a geometric simplification of the forms, cold colors, graphic sign and pathetic intonation of feelings .
At the beginning of the century his works demonstrate a firm perspective, and then focus on more explicitly devotional themes, such as the painful Christ of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Favored by Marshal Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, governor of Milan, he reached the peak of fame in 1508, when he was called by Giulio II to decorate the Vatican Rooms, even though his works were soon destroyed to make room for Raphael .
In Rome he developed a taste for scenes framed by architectures, as seen in later works on his return such as the Crucifixion in Brera or the Madonna delle Torri in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Great prestige was then collected by the creation of the cartoons for the cycle of tapestries with the Months, commissioned by Trivulzio and executed between 1504 and 1509 by the Vigevano manufactory, the first example of the cycle of tapestries produced in Italy without the use of Flemish workers. At the beginning of the twenties his style underwent further development from the contact with Gaudenzio Ferrari, which led him to accentuate the realism, as visible in the landscape of the Flight into Egypt of the sanctuary of the Madonna del Sasso in Orselina, near Locarno (1520-1522) .
Gaudenzio Ferrari
Gaudenzio Ferrari, probable companion of Bramantino in Rome, was the other great protagonist of the Lombard scene of the early sixteenth century. His training was based on the example of Lombard masters of the late fifteenth century (Foppa, Zenale, Bramante and especially Leonardo), but also updated to the styles of Perugino, Raphael (from the period of the Stanza della Segnatura), and Dürer, known through the engravings .
All these stimuli are combined in grandiose works such as the frescoes of the Stories of Christ in the great transversal wall of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Varallo (1513), the success of which guaranteed him the commitment, as a painter and sculptor, in the nascent complex the Holy Mountain, where he worked hard from 1517 to 1528 about .
Later, during the thirties, he worked in Vercelli (Stories of the Virgin and Stories of the Magdalene in the church of San Cristoforo) and in Saronno (Glory of musicians angels in the dome of the sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Miracles.) His career ended in Milan .
Bergamo and Brescia
In the first decades of the sixteenth century the border towns of Bergamo and Brescia benefited from a notable artistic development, first under the impulse of foreign painters, above all Venetian, then of local masters of first importance. The last outpost of the territories of the Serenissima the first, territory subject to alternating phases in Milan or Venice the second, the two cities are united, as well as by proximity, by some features in the artistic field.
The Renaissance in these areas reached the middle of the second decade of the sixteenth century, initially with the stay of artists such as Vincenzo Foppa, who were voluntarily moving away from the dominant leonardism of Milan. A leap in quality took place in Bergamo when Gaudenzio Ferrari and above all Lorenzo Lotto (from 1513) settled there. The latter, supported by a cultured and wealthy clientele, was able to develop its own dimension free from the dominant language in the most important centers of the peninsula, characterizing its works with a very bright palette, sometimes unscrupulous compositional freedom and a tense psychological characterization of the characters. In addition to large blades like that ofMartinengo or that of San Bernardino and in addition to the cycles of frescoes rich in iconographic novelties, such as that of the Suardi Oratory in Trescore, it was above all the ambitious project of the inlaid chorus of Santa Maria Maggiore to keep it occupied until its departure in 1526 .
In Brescia, the arrival of Polyptych Averoldi by Tiziano in 1522 gave the “la” to a group of local painters, almost contemporaries, who, by fusing the Lombard and Venetian cultural roots, developed very original results in the artistic panorama of the peninsula: Romanino, Moretto and the Savoldo .
Second half of the sixteenth century
The second half of the century is dominated by the figure of Carlo Borromeo and the Counter-Reformation. In 1564 the archbishop called the “Instructions” on architecture and art and found the best interpreter of his guidelines in Pellegrino Tibaldi .
A leading figure of the late 16th century Lombard is Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, first painter and then, after the blindness, treatise. His work, exalting the local tradition, appears as an answer to Vasari’s “tosco-centrism”, and he called attention to expressions of art and unusual subjects .
Source from Wikipedia