Milan Baroque in 18th century

For baroque in Milan we mean the dominant artistic style between the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century in the city. In fact, thanks to the work of the cardinals Borromeo and its importance in Italian, first Spanish and then Austrian dominions, Milan experienced a lively artistic season in which it assumed the role of the driving force of Lombard Baroque.

General features
The Milanese baroque experience can be divided into three parts: the first seventeenth century, the second seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first seventeenth century begins with the appointment as bishop of Milan of Federico Borromeo in 1595 in continuity with the work of his cousin Carlo: in this first phase the main exponents of the Milanese painting are three, Giovan Battista Crespi, called the Cerano, Giulio Cesare Procaccini and Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, called the Morazzone. In this first phase the evolution of the new baroque style follows with continuity the late mannerist art spread in Milan at the time of Carlo Borromeo; the formation of the three painters took place in fact on the models of the late Tuscan and Roman Mannerism for Cerano and Morazzone, while the Procaccini was formed on Emilian models. From an architectural point of view, the religious commissions dominate the scene, since the Spanish domination took more care of works of military utility than non-civil; many pre-existing churches were completely rebuilt and decorated in baroque style, and as many built from new: if the baroque style was introduced in Milan by Lorenzo Binago, two others are the main architects who at the time divided the scene, that is Fabio Mangone, from the most classic lines and for this reason often chosen for the commissions by Federico Borromeo, and Francesco Maria Richini simply called the Richini, from the lines more inspired by the early Roman Baroque. Having overcome this dualism, Richini certainly represents the greatest figure of architect of the seventeenth-century Milan, and to find such a prestigious figure in Milanese architecture we will have to wait until the advent of Giuseppe Piermarini.

The second phase of the baroque, which begins approximately after the early thirties of the seventeenth century, starts after a brief intermezzo full of significant events: first the main interpreters of the movement disappeared between 1625 (Giulio Cesare Procaccini) and 1632 (the Cerano ), to which was added the death of Cardinal Federico Borromeo, one of the greatest figures of the seventeenth century Lombard, and especially the great Manzoni plague, which cut the city’s population by half, affecting the young Milanese promising Daniele Crespi among the thousands of victims, which among other things will lead to the closure of the Ambrosian Academy, founded in 1621from Federico Borromeo to train young artists for the Milanese school, where he assumed the major interpreters of the early Baroque, on all the Cerano and Fabio Mangone, as teachers.

The painting in the second seventeenth century was then completely renewed in its interpreters, seeing the work of the brothers Giuseppe and Carlo Francesco Nuvolone, Francesco Cairo, Giovan Battista Discepoli and others; in this case played a fundamental role is the now closed Accademia Ambrosiana, which first gave a certain continuity in style and then re-open a few years, both the work in some construction sites of artists from the rest of Italy of Emilia school, Genoese and Veneto. The architecture, with the disappearance of Fabio Magone, sees the work of Francesco Richini, who remained almost unrivaled in his Milanese production, flanked by minor performers such as Gerolamo Quadrio and Carlo Buzzi. Thanks to this last fact, the achievements of this period broke completely with the Mannerist influences, to approach a markedly Baroque experience, with influences from the Emilian, Genoese and Roman schools. The last quarter of a century saw the opening of the second Ambrosian Academy reopened in 1669 under the direction of Antonio Busca, a pupil of Carlo Francesco Nuvolone, and Dionigi Bussola, who together with the new Milanese Academy of San Luca, linked to the homonymous Roman academy, contributed to the return of a currentclassicist linked to the Bolognese and Roman school.

The eighteenth century is the last Baroque phase; the style did not explicitly lead to the rococo thanks to the normative action of the Milanese engineer-architects’ college and there was a change of tendency: religious commissions no longer played the main role in the Milanese artistic scene, but they gave way to the villas of delight of the Milanese countryside and the return of the large private construction sites: the liveliness of the construction sites led to a greater number of performers of thickness, including Giovanni Battista Quadrio, Carlo Federico Pietrasanta, Bartolomeo Bolla, Carlo Giuseppe Merlo eFrancesco Croce, to whom was added the Roman Giovanni Ruggeri, very active throughout Lombardy. In painting stand the works of Giambattista Tiepolo for the “painting of history” and of Alessandro Magnasco for genre painting, both non-Lombard: this phase marked a change in the taste of the clients, who preferred non-Lombard school artists, above all the Venetian one, considered at the time most prestigious. In the late eighteenth century there is a period in which the lines of the baroque are mitigated by the impending neoclassicism, until the baroque Milanese season ends with the painter Francesco Londonio, to whose death in 1783the city of Milan was already at the height of the age of enlightenment, in the height of the neoclassical season.

The eighteenth century
The eighteenth century marks a turning point in Milanese art and architecture: historically it marks the passage of the duchy under the dominion of the Austrians, under which the arts passed from the service of religious commissions to the patriciate and later to the State. There is therefore a decline in religious artistic production for the benefit of the civil one. This period, though containing the most mature and exuberant forms of the Milanese baroque, represents a sort of prodrome of the Milanese neoclassical season, in which art and architecture passed definitively to the services of public affairs and the State.

Palazzo Litta
Palazzo Litta represents, together with Palazzo Clerici, the best example of 18th-century Baroque architecture of the city. Built in the seventeenth century, once again assigned to the project by Richini, it was completed only in 1752, to which the imposing façade was designed by Bartolomeo Bolli. The building is composed of three bodies: the main body in the center is set on three floors, marked by six pilasters of Corinthian order, is more decorated and slightly jutting out from the other two symmetrical side bodies, only two stories high. On the ground floor, the central portal takes monumental forms, bordered by twogiant caryatids supporting a convex balcony: this shape is taken up by the side balconies of the first floor. Each floor has windows very decorated with curvilinear gables, each floor has different decorations: on the main floor you can see frames decorated with double scrolls containing heads of lion; on the top floor the windows on the top floor have wrought iron railings. The central body is crowned by a large pediment mixtilineal with carved inside the coat of arms of the Litta family supported by two mori: the realization of this fastigium is sometimes attributed to the workers of the Fabbrica del Duomo, at the time unemployed, of Elia Vincenzo Buzzi, Carlo Domenico Pozzo and Giuseppe Perego.

Passing the entrance you are in the main courtyard of seventeenth-century taste, attributed to the Richini, it has a square plan enclosed on all four sides by vaulted porches with barrel vaults, supported by granite architraved columns decorated by capitals with festoons [128 ]; continuing to the left leads to the monumental staircase “a tenaglia”, built by Carlo Giuseppe Merlo in 1750 in pink granite of Baveno with parapet in red marble of Arzo and black marble of Varenna. The interiors are among the most luxurious in the Milanese landscape, with inlaid floors, stucco and marble decorations and frescoes. Among the most beautiful environments we can mention the central hall, or Hall of mirrors, adorned with rococo- style gilded mirrors and frescoed with the Apotheosis of a Litta by Giovanni Antonio Cucchi, the red Salotto, furnished with purple red damaschi, frescoed in trompe l’oeil and with mosaic floors, the yellow lounge that takes its name from the colors of the fabrics with which the environment is decorated and the Sala della Duchessastill furnished with original baroque furniture; finally, there are the Wedding of Pluto and Proserpina created by Martin Knoller in a minor salon.

Finally, there is the courtyard of the clock, which takes its name from the characteristic clock, and the old private chapel of the Litta on the ground floor of the building, then transformed into the theater still in use.

Palazzo Clerici
Palazzo Clerici was one of the most prestigious and sumptuous residences of eighteenth-century Milan, so much so that in 1772 it became official temporary residence of Archduke Ferdinand, son of Maria Theresa of Austria. Designed by an unknown architect, the façade is set on three floors, with the central part falling from the rest of the body; the central portal is rather sober and is decorated, besides the arch, by a mask with swirls, the windows are decorated with curvilinear fagades; passing through a wrought iron gate you enter the courtyard with porticoes of ionic columns paired in pink granite.

Criticism, however, often emphasizes the discrepancy of the anonymous external appearance, which does not reveal anything of the luxurious interior. On the right of the courtyard you get to the three-ramped staircase of honor, on whose balustrade there is a parade of statues placed on the ramps, while the vault is decorated with a fresco by Mattia Bortoloni. The interior reaches its peak in the Gallery of the Tapestries, whose vault is frescoed by Giambattista Tiepolo with the fresco cycle of the Corsa del carro del Sole, the Allegories of the four continents and the Allegories of the Arts, considered to be among the greatest proofs of the Venetian painter; the walls are decorated with Flemish tapestries dating back to the seventeenth century depicting Stories of Moses and mirrors carved in wood by Giuseppe Cavanna, depicting scenes of liberated Jerusalem.

The gallery, which was not very easy for the painter, had probably been derived from a pre-existing structure: this commission was probably used to complete the social ascent that the family had accomplished since the seventeenth century: in the Corsa del carro del Sole, according to the historian of art Michael Levey, celebrates “the sun of Austria rising up to illuminate the world” or the patronage of the family, given the role of Apollo and Mercury protectors of the sciences. In the Marshal’s Room there are the stucco decorations by Giuseppe Cavanna with the Labors of Hercules and Mythological Stories; always in the environment of the so-calledBoudoir of Maria Teresa are always decorations of the carver.

The frescoes in other rooms of the palace date back to a period between the thirties and forties of the eighteenth century by Giovanni Angelo Borroni, with an Olympic scene with the rat of Ganymede and the Apotheosis of Hercules, and Mattia Bortoloni, to whom attributed the medallion on the vault of the grand staircase, the frescoes of the Allegory of the winds and another scene of Apotheosis in the private apartments of the client, in which a Jupiter with the features of Antonio Giorgio Clerici can be glimpsed in a parade of Olympic deities; always the Bortoloni fresco is the Gallery of paintings, which would still like to celebrate the good Austrian government and of Maria Theresa of Austria.

Other civil architectures
In addition to Palazzo Clerici, Tiepolo worked in many other Milanese shipyards of the time. Another significant work by the artist was that at Palazzo Dugnani; the building has two facades: the external one is simpler and less decorated; on the contrary, the internal façade, which overlooks the gardens of Porta Venezia, is much more varied and varied. The building, divided into three parts, presents the central body set back from the two side parts, to whose ground floor there is a portico and the upper floor is composed of a loggia, crowned by a stone cimasa; this structure is then repeated in the two lateral bodies. In the hall of honor you can see on the walls the fresco cycles of the Life of Scipio, while on the vault are depicted the Apotheosis of Scipio, in which you can see the self-congratulatory intent of Giuseppe Casati, then owner of the palace and client [ 140].

It differs from the style of typical Milanese houses Palazzo Cusani: the reason is identified in the draft Giovanni Ruggeri, architect of Rome who imported the most lively Roman Baroque in his work, already recognizable in the socket faux rough rock on the ground floor. The building is set on three floors, marked by Corinthian pilasters, and curiously presents two identical entrance portals; the windows on the ground floor and on the main floor are richly decorated with curvilinear, triangular and mixed tympanums and gables, and are often further decorated with shells and plant elements, the French windows bear the coat of arms of the Cusani family. On the top floor the windows are resized and have mixed lines; everything ends on a rich balustrade.

Dating back to the seventeenth century but heavily remodeled in the first half of the eighteenth century is Palazzo Sormani, home of the central municipal library of Milan. The building has two different decorated facades; the front towards Corso di Porta Vittoria is due to Francesco Croce: the façade has an arched portal at the center surmounted by a mistilenean balcony, the windows on the ground floor are crowned with oval-shaped windows and on the main floor by fastigi alternately triangular motifs and curvilinear. The main floor also houses two side terraces, and is surmounted by a curvilinear tympanum; the facade towards the garden is posterior and has a more sober appearance, precursor of neoclassicism. The interior still contains the monumental stone staircase and houses the series of paintings representing Orpheus that enchants animals from the Verri family collection, traditionally attributed to Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, known as Grechetto.

Palazzo Visconti di Modrone was commissioned in 1715 by the Spanish count Giuseppe Bolagnos, the façade has three floors and is vertically punctuated by four pilasters, it is centered on the rectangular portal limited by two granite columns supporting a stone balcony. As typical in other architectures of the time, the various floors have different window decorations on each floor, in particular those on the main floor with double scrolls Some windows have balconies on the top floor. The internal courtyard, in addition to the classic rectangular court solution with double-column porticoes, has a balcony that runs along the entire first floor: an extremely rare solution in Lombard buildings of the time. The ballroom with trompe l’oeil frescoes depicting mythological scenes by Nicola Bertuzzi is still preserved today.

Other baroque buildings of the time, although less striking on the outside than those previously mentioned, are Palazzo Trivulzio, which stands out for the area near the entrance portal in contrast with the sobriety of the rest of the building and Palazzo Olivazzi, whose entrance portal consists of a sort of giant niche, built to facilitate the entry of carriages, and for the trompe l’oeil in the courtyard.

Religious Architecture
Despite the recovery and dominance of private town residences, the sacred art of the early eighteenth century is not to be neglected.

The church of San Francesco di Paola dates back to 1728, and although the façade was completed only a century later, it was built respecting the original Baroque style. The façade is curved, and is divided into two orders divided by a rather jutting cornice; the first floor has three portals surmounted by fastigi or elliptic windows, and is marked by eight Corinthian pilasters. On the sides, the upper order has two terraces with balusters that support two statues of the Faith and of Hope; in the center there is a grandly decorated window, surmounted by a coat of arms bearing the motto “CHARITAS” of the saint in charge of the church.

The interior has a single nave: of particular interest are the baroque period organ on the counter-façade, the frescoes on the vault of Carlo Maria Giudici depicting the Glory of St. Francis of Paola and the marble ovals of Giuseppe Perego. The high altar with monumental forms of the architect Giuseppe Buzzi di Viggiù dates back to 1753, made of polychrome marbles.

Famous more for its particularity than for the artistic value, the church of San Bernardino alle Ossa saw its completion in 1750 on a project of the architect Carlo Giuseppe Merlo, who thought a structure with a central plan crowned by an octagonal dome: the church has a single nave and has two chapels dedicated to Santa Maria Maddalena and Santa Rosalia, both decorated with marble altars. The facade is what remains of the old church that was destroyed in a fire, the work of Carlo Buzzi, and looks more like a palace than a church: divided into three orders, the first on the ground floor has portals and windows adorned with tipped fasteners, while the upper orders have tympanum-shaped tongues.

Inside the church, on the right, is the most peculiar part of the complex, or the ossuary: in addition to the magnificent marble altar by Gerolamo Cattaneo and the frescoes on the vault of Sebastiano Ricci of the Triumph of the souls among angels (1695), one can observe the walls almost completely covered with human skulls and bones, sometimes creating real motifs and decorations.

Left unfinished, the church of Santa Maria della Sanità was begun at the end of the seventeenth century, but was redesigned and completed by Carlo Federico Pietrasanta in the early eighteenth century: the incompleteness is immediately visible from the brick facade and without decorations. yet well recognizable by the alternation of concavity and convexity and for the particular shape called “a cello” and for the pediment to “feluca di mars”. The interior has a single elliptical nave, with five chapels, including the chapel dedicated to St. Camillus de Lellis with the marble altar with bronze insertsand the canvas of the Assumption of the choir and the fresco Assumption of the Virgin (1717) on the vault of Pietro Maggi.

On an old monastery of the fourteenth century the church of San Pietro Celestino was erected, designed by Mario Bianchi in 1735. The façade is curved, with an installation similar to that of San Francesco di Paola; built in sandstone, at the beginning of the twentieth century it was necessary a restoration that involved the reconstruction of the decorative cement facade. The façade differs from the church of San Francesco di Paola for the decorated columns of the portal, surmounted by a sculpture of the church’s titular saint, and by the richly decorated chandelier with volutes. The interior consists of a single nave punctuated by pilasters, with five side chapels; above the eighteenth – century high altar there is a complex of sculptures ofAngels in Carrara marble and a late sixteenth century painting by Giovanni Battista Trotti depicting Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.

For the use of the major hospital, the church of San Michele ai Nuovi Sepolcri was erected together with the Rotonda della Besana complex, which for about eighty years served as the burial site of the Milanese hospital complex. Outside the walls with exposed brick follow a curious four-lobed shape, from which the round name, at whose center is the cemetery church with a Greek cross, with a dome hidden by the octagonal lantern, designed by Francesco Croce: the church was built starting from 1696, the perimeter from 1713.

Painting
The eighteenth-century Milanese painting of the beginning of the century shows strong signs of continuity with the artistic experience of the late seventeenth century, the protagonists of the first years in fact made the first steps at the end of the seventeenth century to conclude their activity the first decade of the eighteenth century.

Among the most important names at the turn of the century Andrea Lanzani, actually very active throughout western Lombardy and in Vienna, can be cited as the most illustrious protagonist of the Milanese and Lombard classicist movement together with Legnanino, but he will be more influenced by the baroque school Genoese, while they are contrasted with a more markedly late Baroque experience Filippo Abbiati and Paolo Pagani with a painting influenced by the Venetian and Lombard schools. The Milanese experience of Sebastiano Ricci must be considered in its own right, where he could meet and compare withAlessandro Magnasco: Ricci remembers in particular the Gloria of the purging souls of San Bernardino alle Ossa where the influence of the Baciccio corrgismo is observed. A summa of the major interpreters of the period just mentioned could be Palazzo Pagani, destroyed, in which numerous frescoes were added by the Legnanino frescoes in the Great Hall. Of more markedly Lombard influences it was instead Carlo Donelli, called the Vimercati, a pupil of Ercole Procaccini the Younger who particularly felt the style of Daniele Crespi and Morazzone.

Later, after the period at the turn of the century, we can mention in painting mythological and allegorical figures of Giovanni Battista Sassi, Pietro Antonio Magatti and Giovanni Angelo Borroni, the latter is reminiscent of the fresco Olympic scene with rat of Ganymede at Palazzo Clerici.

Starting from the third decade of the eighteenth century there was a change in the taste of the Milanese clientele, which until then had preferred Lombard artists, in favor of the Venetian school, on which stand out Giambattista Pittoni and Tiepolo; of the first, very active even outside the city, we remember the work of the Gloria of St. Francis de Sales in the monastery, while for the Tiepolo there were many stays and to the prerogative of the noble residences of the city. His first Milanese commission was at Palazzo Archinto, where in five rooms he painted a cycle to celebrate the client’s wedding, explicitly depicted in the fresco of the Triumph of the arts and sciences, which was destroyed by the bombings of the Second World War. The painter was a few years later summoned to Palazzo Dugnani where he frescoed the cycles of the Stories of Scipio and Apotheosis of Scipione, passing also for a brief religious commission of the Gloria of San Bernardo in a chapel of the church of Sant’Ambrogio, to conclude his Milanese experience with the masterpiece of Palazzo Clerici of the mythological fresco of the Corsa del Carro del Sole, to which he will then draw inspiration for the commission of the imperial salon in the Residence of Würzburg, also counted among the masterpieces ofrococo. The presence of Tiepolo was so significant that it defined a “Tepelian current”, of which the greatest exponent is Biagio Bellotti, with his pictorial cycles at Palazzo Perego and Palazzo Sormani.

Like a mythological and allegorical painting of history, a current of genre painting is thus affirmed in Milan as in Lombardy. Among the major exponents we find Alessandro Magnasco, born in Genoa but trained in Milan, he specialized in some characteristic figures, such as washerwomen, friars, beggars and soldiers, using a style defined as “touch painting”: he was also welcomed in the Milanese Academy of St. Luke. Another great exponent of the current is Vittore Ghislandi, known as Fra ‘Galgario, whose formation takes place between the Venetian and Milanese surroundings, thanks to which he arrives at a more naturalistic painting and distant from celebrative painting: his Milanese stays include the Portrait of a Young Man and a Gentleman with a Tricorn, this last considered a masterpiece despite being painted in late age ” having a rather trembling hand”, both kept at Poldi Pezzoli. To complete the panorama of genre painting is Giacomo Ceruti, called the Pitocchetto, who devoted himself mainly to poor scenes, inspired by the painting of the typical seventeenth-century French typical for example of Georges de La TourFrom the experience of Ceruti, Francesco Londonio will be taught, who can be defined as the last major painter of the Milanese late Baroque experience.

Lastly, it is important to remember the tradition of the benefactor gallery of the major hospital in Milan, which, after having accompanied the whole Milanese baroque, also accompanied its conclusion, probably reaching its peak in the first twenty years of the eighteenth century with tests by Filippo Abbiati and Andrea Porta.

Source from Wikipedia