Thursday 28 March 2024

automatic translation

Thursday 28 March 2024

automatic translation

    The Milan Cathedral and its stained glass windows

    At the beginning of the fifteenth century, in the construction site of the Milan Cathedral, the architects who took care of the work decided that the time had come for the design of a series of windows that would occupy the apse.

    The first works bear the signature of the master glassmaker Michelino Da Besozzo, and already at the beginning of the sixteenth century the factory of the Duomo was equipped with two furnaces that were intended to speed up the construction of the windows, which were designed by some glass masters, such as Stefano Da Pandino and Franceschino Zavattari, from Flanders and Rome.
    Throughout the sixteenth century, the work continued with great efficiency, only to suffer an abrupt halt during the Spanish and Austrian domination, more interested in completing the work on the frescoes and statues of the cathedral chapels.
    Towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth century, the works on the windows were completed, which were designed with the technique of fire painting.
    Among the best known and most appreciated windows there are
    That of the New Testament which is the work of Lombard masters who were inspired by the works of the famous painter Foppa with influences from the Ferrara school.
    Beginning with the Annunciation, it develops the story of the life of Christ, and is very well preserved. In it the grisaille technique is particularly evident, with which the ancient artists transferred to the glass the design that the painters made on the cartons that served as a model.
    Then there are those of Sant'Eligio, patron saint of goldsmiths, the window of San Giovanni Damasceno, commissioned by the college of apothecaries and then the window of the Apocalypse.

    The Apocalypse window, which is the central window of the main apse, was originally commissioned personally by Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1416 from Franceschino Zavattari, Maffiolo da Cremona and Stefano da Pandino.
    It was rebuilt in the mid-nineteenth century by Giovanni Battista Bertini and his sons Pompeo and Giuseppe (1835-1839). Initially it was dedicated to the Vision of the Apocalypse, of which about fifty pieces from the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries are preserved in the upper part. Under the rose window there are ten badges, bearing the Visconti coats of arms, that of Milan and of two districts, Porta Orientale and Porta Vercellina.

    Source: wikipedia.it

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