Richard Schofield Architecture and the Assertion of the Cult of Relics Reconstructions by Giulia Ceriani Sebregondi in Milan’s Public Spaces 1. Milano, Sant’Ambrogio, the Colonna del Diavolo outside the atrium (photo R. Schofield). The achievements and attitudes of Carlo Borromeo with respect to Milan are summarised perfectly by two short documents: writing to Cardinal Morone on 4 December 1563, he declared that “il mio desiderio è che ormai s’attenda ad eseguir questo santo concilio conforme al bisogno che ne ha la christianità tutta e non più a disputare”1; and an inscription recorded that “AMBROSIVS RENOVAT, RENOVAT QVOQVE CAROLVS VRBEM, VRBIS VTERQVE PARENS, ORBIS VTERQVE DECVS”2. Borromeo was determined to apply assiduously the decrees of Trent and he followed the example of Ambrose with respect to the spiritual renovation of Milan. Bearing these telegraphic utterances in mind, we may ask to what extent Carlo Borromeo was able to use architecture to keep the doctrines reinforced at Trent before the eyes and minds of the people in the public spaces of Milan. The Prince of Darkness was everywhere and eternal; they say that he was so enraged with St Ambrose when he could not tempt him that he headbutted the ancient column now next to the atrium of Sant’Ambrogio, leaving two holes in it (ill. 3 1) ; and he lead the people of Milan so badly into Error that God inflicted the terrible plague of 1576-77 on them. Post-tridentine Milan needed greater protection than ever before from the forces of evil lurking within and without, and architecture, permanent and temporary bulwarks against the Demonio, could be used to enforce some of the great doctrinal declarations of Trent, particularly those on the cult of images and the cult of relics4. The crosses that Borromeo set up in the streets of Milan were images, not relics; but Milan could also boast some of the earliest and most important of all western relics: one of the Nails of the True Cross and the remains of a number of martyr-saints. Borromeo made the fullest use possible of these objects; he set up crosses at cross-roads from 1573 and organised lavish processions with the Holy Nail from 1576 and a series of translationes of the remains of saints – encouraged and validated above all by the example of St Ambrose – culminating in the spectacular extravaganza of the procession for St Simplicianus in 1582. These actions were nothing if not ideological and are examples of the assertion of the Tridentine position on the cult of images and relics in the face of ferocious attacks by Protestant historians and theologians. I. The Cross and Relics: the Protestant Attack From the late 1550’s in particular Catholics had to defend their position on images and relics more than ever before in the face of a deluge of Protestant attacks from Calvin, the Magdeburg Centurians, Martin Chemnitz and many others5. Let us examine some of the principal points made by these and other authors, identifying particularly those aspects of the complicated arguments to which Carlo Borromeo was determined to reply. Perhaps the most lively, thorough and venomous of the post-Erasmian assaults on the cult in the mid-16th century were those delivered by Calvin in the successive editions of the Institutions and the Traité des reliques of 15436. Calvin maintained that the Church fathers did not practice the invocation or worship of saints and martyrs. In the Old Testament, Abraham, Sarah and Moses were not idolised or removed from their graves; Moses’ body was hidden to prevent the possibility of idolatry. The bodies of John the Baptist and Stephen were buried to keep them away from animals and neither their bodies nor parts thereof were displayed to the people. Relics have no inherent power and lead to idolatry; the placement of relics on high altars is disgraceful since we should worship God, not dead and insensible objects7. Calvin attacks particularly the charlatanism involved in the accumulation of relics. Even dog or ass bones are confused, often wilfully, with those of saints; some saints, mirabile dictu, had two, three or even four bodies; he reports a 79 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org Magdalen with eyes made, in fact, of paste or wax, and a body of St Peter where the brain is really a pumpkin stone. It is particularly absurd that we find the blood of Christ at Rochelle, Mantua and in the Lateran in Rome. The cult of contact relics, exemplified by the manger in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, is even less acceptable. None of these objects has a provenance and none are mentioned in the Gospels; in any case, Jerusalem and Rome, where they come from, were destroyed several times. But this cult now includes objects such as the pots in which Christ changed the water into wine (examples at Antwerp, Cluny, Pisa, Ravenna, Salvatierra in Spain) and the food and implements – bread, knives, glasses, jugs, – used at the Last Supper; to think, says Calvin, that Christ used such a rich dinner-service8! The case of the cross is particularly absurd; how many pieces of it are now scattered around the world? Catholics cannot even agree on the story; Ambrose says that one nail was set in the crown, another in the bit given by Helen to Constantine9, and Theodoretus, that Helen put one nail in Constantine’s helmet and two in the bridle of his horse10. Milan and Carpentras have Holy Nails, but so too do Rome, Siena and Venice; and there are six in France, making at least 14 in all11. Calvin presents similar observations about the many lances, thorns, windingsheets, and so on, in existence. The relics of Sts Gervasius and Protasius were discovered in Milan in 386, as Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine say; but how is it that there are others at Brissach in Germany12, Besançon and elsewhere? In sum, Calvin and many others attack the adoration of precisely those contact-relics illustrated in the first relief of the cycle of the Santi Martiri in the choir of the Duomo di Milano – wood from the True Cross, the sponge, the lance, the column, the Nail made into a bit and a thorn13. The problem of images and relics became particularly acute with the rolling onslaught contained in the third and fourth volumes of the majestic Ecclesiastica historia of the Magdeburg Centurians lead by Matthias Flaccius Illyricus and published from 155914. The Magdeburgers’ assault was augmented by the work of the second great Martin of the Reformation, Chemnitz, writing in volume IV of his vast Examen concilii tridentini of 1573, the year in which Borromeo issued the first of his decrees establishing crosses in Milan. In the Examen, Chemnitz printed each Tridentine decree and then subjected it to a crystalline and remorseless analysis15. As with many other aspects of the cultus externus, the hinge was Constantine and the Protestants’ destructive analysis of Constantine’s encouragement of certain cerimonie had already emerged in the 1520’s but reached its apogee in the late 1550’s and 1560’s with the Magdeburgers16. They, with Chemnitz and others, sought to demonstrate that many practices now accepted by Catholics were misguidedly encouraged or introduced by a naive and doctrinally unprepared Constantine, leaving themselves with the ticklish problem of how to explain why such aberrations had been introduced by the first Christian emperor. Chemnitz, with his usual clarity, epitomises the Protestant position: “revocetur itaque tota controversia ad primos fontes et res plana erit”17. He launches his examen: the cult of relics is illegitimate because it cannot be documented in the Bible and hardly at all before Constantine. We dedicate churches and pray in them to God and not to saints or martyrs, as Augustine makes absolutely clear in the much-quoted chapters in De Civitate Dei, 22, 9 and 1018. Traditionally the ancients did not like corpses, which were buried outside cities, and the barbarians even threw them to the dogs. But as Paul says, our bodies are temples inhabited by the Holy Spirit and the Grace of God (II Cor., 6, 6, 16-17) and the Apostles did indeed perform miracles; yet we all go to dust “Quis aliud est homo secundum corpus quam sperma foetidum, saccus stercorum, cibus vermium?” When we are dead we have the promise of future glory; indeed the Scriptures say that tombs are full of putrid things but that they are with God and enjoy his grace; as Jerome says in his Contra Vigilantium, relics should not be thrown into the pigsty but honoured19. Therefore – Chemnitz continues – we Protestants do not deny that the bodies of the good should be respected; rather, we dispute what type of veneration should be directed to them. The Old Testament does not support the Catholic way of providing “magnificae et sumptuosae […] curationes funerum”, but merely says that the dead should be buried decently. From the New Testament we know that the Baptist and St Stephen were celebrated in prayer but that there was no invocatio of them at their tombs; their bones were not transported and exposed to adoration and kissing, earning indulgences and the Grace of God. Nor is there proof in the New Testament that the Apostles’ miracle-working abilities remained active after their deaths, so the cult of relics is undocumented in the Bible. And even in the case of other miracleworking remains mentioned in the Bible, no cult was ever set up afterwards20. The existence of translationes is not guaranteed by the example of Joseph because he was not put in a great tomb but wrapped up in a vase. He was transported to Israel reverently but even when they were being chased by the Pharaoh and attacked by snakes, they did not appeal to his 80 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 2. Cerano (Giovan Battista Crespi), Carlo Borromeo setting up the cross at Cordusio (after Carlo Borromeo e l’opera della “grande riforma”. Cultura, religione e arti del governo nella Milano del pieno Cinquecento, a cura di F. Buzzi e D. Zardin, Milano 1997). remains; once arrived in Israel, they simply interred him21. Certainly there are examples in the Bible of remains being moved from one tomb to another but never of a translatio like that of which the Catholics are so fond because “terra es et in terram reverteris”22. Such, concludes Chemnitz, is the evidence provided by the scriptura sola which we Protestants adhere to. But Catholics, not finding proof in the Bible, turn to the historians and fathers of the Church – sources which actually say merely that relics were treated with reverence but no more23. Catholics pretend that the cult already existed in the primitive Church, but that is not true. The practice of celebrating saints’ anniversaries arose with the false cult of relics; for example, in the Epistola Smyrnensis about Polycarpus (martyred c. 155-157) reported in Eusebius, we learn that they did not dig up his remains and parade them around. Similarly Astirius took away the body of the martyr Marinus, arrayed it in splendid clothes and then interred it; and elsewhere we find that other saints’ bodies were washed and robed – then buried, but not displayed to the populace24. Even Peter and Paul were simply buried with reverence in tombs on the via Ostiensis25. Splendid translationes only began under Constantine for the very good reason that he was transferring heathen practices to the Church to attract more pagans to the Faith. Chemnitz illustrates this fact with the examples of Antigonus’s elaborate celebration at sea of his father, Demetrius Poliorketes, and Cimon’s famous transportation of the remains of Theseus from Skyros to Athens; “Constantinus ex zelo pietatis non malo fecit”26. In Centuria IV, published in 1560, the Magdeburgers say that the mania for translationes began with what remains the first known example anywhere, that of St Babylas who was buried at Dafne in the Christian cemetery outside the walls of Antioch. Around 351 Caesar Gallus had the remains transported to a church in the same suburb in order to counter the power of the nearby oracle of Apollo. In 362 Julian the Apostate had the remains removed from the shrine at the request of the priests of Apollo, but under bishop Meletius they were found another resting place in a new basilica, as Chrysostom tells us in texts much cited by Catholics, the De sancto hieromartyre Babyla and particularly the Liber in S. Babylam27. The Centurians cite many other examples of this superstitious practice, not sparing Ambrose either, of course; Ambrose left the first known detailed account of a translatio in the West when he described that of Sts Gervasius and Protasius in his celebrated letter to his sister, Marcellina, on 29 June 386 – the discovery of the relics, exhibiting them to the people, their transference to Sant’Ambrogio, the all-night vigils, the sermons about the lives of saints and the inevitable miracles. In subsequent volumes the Magdeburgers never cease to lament the exponential expansion of the cult; for example, in the 4th century, “Diabolus paulatim superstitionem de mortuorum reliquiis earumque virtute instillare incautis hominum mentibus studuit”28. Chemnitz admits that the desire to build great tombs for important men and visit them is natural, but maintains that the practice was pagan, citing the wonderful story in Aelian about Alexander the Great. Alexander lay unburied for 30 days, until Aristandros of Telmissus announced in the Macedonian assembly that Alexander was the most fortunate king in history and that the gods had told him that whichever land received his body would enjoy the greatest good fortune. Whereupon those present started arguing over possession of the body. Ptolemy rushed off to Alexandria with the body and Perdiccas chased him to seize it back from him; but Ptolemy had a dummy hearse, body and decorations made up, which fooled and delayed Perdiccas badly, while Ptolemy made off with the real thing29. This kind of misdirected adulation – Chemnitz continues – should be countered by the attitude exemplified by that of Chrysostom speaking of Rome, in a passage also quoted by Carlo Borromeo; Chrysostom does not love Rome for its magnificent buildings, its antiquity or beauty, its populace, richness, triumphs, victories or wealth; he loves it because Paul lived there and wished to 81 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 3. Vincenzo Seregni, project for the Porta verso Compedo, north transept, Duomo of Milano (after F. Repishti [ed.], La facciata del Duomo di Milano nei disegni d’Archivio della Fabbrica [1583-1737], Milano 2002). 4. Frontispiece of Pietro Galesini’s book on the dedication of the Vatican obelisk, 1586 (Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana). die there; this is why the city is more glorious than any other; in its proud and glorious body it has two splendid eyes, the bodies of the two apostles. Chrysostom thus celebrates Rome not for its great colonnades and ancient buildings but for those two pillars of the Church30. Of course Basil had asserted that relics are like the towers and walls defending cities and, as we know from Jerome and Augustine, the habit of making pilgrimages soon grew up, encouraged by the miracles associated with relics31. But these and similar sources are cited by Catholics – including Carlo Borromeo, as we shall see – as though they reflected a traditio apostolica followed always and everywhere in the Church; but these are not attested by early sources and derive from a period when heathen practices were seeping into the Church. Chemnitz, with a classic Protestant counterattack, cites a series of contemporary objectors to these practices32. Augustine, for example, talks in the De moribus ecclesiae of bad Christians who adore sepulchres and paintings, who drink without restraint to the dead and offer food to their bodies; and in De Civitate Dei, he affirms that we build churches for God, not martyrs, and that the best Christians do not bring food to shrines to eat themselves or give to the poor in the hope that contact with the relics will make them holy; elsewhere he laments the growing trade in false relics33. So too Cyril objects to translationes and urges that the dead should be left in the ground34. But, unfortunately, pilgrimages had become unstoppable, and Eusebius reported that as early as 200 (according to Chemnitz) Alexander from Cappadocia had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem35. But the ways to the Lord should never includes pilgrimage because He is everywhere and can come to you; we are looking for heavenly, not earthly Jerusalem. The Cross, since it could be both an image and a relic, fell between two types of ideological cross-fire36. Here the Centurians, followed closely by Chemnitz, declare that the use of images and of the cross in sacred buildings is not documented before the 4th century: “de imaginibus vero et picturis, quibus conventuum aedes exornatae fuerint, certi aliquid sane in historia huius seculi non reperies”37. The worship of the cross and all its miracles are merely superstition, not documented in the Age of the Apostles, but a phenomenon which had unfortunately developed during and after Constantine’s reign. Constantine’s celebrated vision of the cross did not mean what Catholics think; Eusebius narrated the story of how Constantine ordered sculptors to make a cross like the one he saw in his vision and dream38. But the cross and the inscription IN HOC VINCE constituted an admonition by God to recognise and invoke the true God and our Lord Jesus Christ. God made miracles occur in and around the cross not from some human superstition that there was power inherent in the cross, but in order to direct men to the invocation, profession and recognition of the true religion39. Chemnitz admits that, of course, there were many mentions of the sign of the cross “illis primis temporibus” but asserts that there were no images of Christ crucified; at the time of Tertullian (160-220) and after, Christians crossed themselves by making the sign of a transverse, not Latin cross40. Under Constantine the cross began to be painted and carved, but it was the labarum – “duobus lignis transversim coniunctis” – not the Latin cross with the image of Christ on the Cross. The cross was not yet a cult-object, merely a professio et commonefactio that demonstrated that Christians believed in the crucified Christ. Furthermore under Constantine the cross was not put in churches to be adored but was, more than anything else, a military ensign used to encourage the soldiers towards the agnitio, invocatio and cultus of Christ. Whence the Centurians collect reports that Constantine saw the cross often during his military campaigns – against the Goths and Saurometae41, the Byzantines and the Scythians42, and in the war against Licinius and Maxentius when he saw a horseman using the cross as though it were a banner43. The story of the discovery of the Nails of the True Cross by Helen was of compelling impor- 82 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org tance for Carlo Borromeo, since it constituted the most important relic in Milan. The Emperor Theodosius died on 17 January 395 and Ambrose’s eulogy, De obitu Theodosii, was delivered on 25 February44. Inserted, not entirely happily, into the text of the speech, is the long section narrating the story of the finding of the Cross by Helen, a story subsequently reported by Rufinus, Socrates, Theodoretus, Sozomenus and many others45. Helen identified which of the crosses was the true one, having found that inscribed INRI; Ambrose specifically notes that she then adored the prototype, Christ, not the wood of the cross. When she found the nails – two, not three or four, to judge by Ambrose’s account – one was made into a bit, the other set in a diadem with a cross and both were sent to Constantine and thence to Constantine’s successors. Helen was wise; a cross on the head of a King ensures that the Faith would shine forth; but the head is also the seat of the intellect, now sanctified and guarded by the cross, whilst the bit formed by the other nail indicates authority tempered by moderation and wisdom, which would have reined in the arrogance of emperors like Nero and Caligula. Making the nail into a bit fulfilled the inscrutable prophecy of Zechariah, 14, 10: “In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD”. Further, Ambrose makes a great deal of the nails as relics indicating the victory of Christ over the Jews, pagans, Arians, Romans and the followers of Photius. But the story presented grave problems ferociously attacked by Protestants46. Astonishingly, Eusebius, a friend of Constantine’s, never says a word about Helen’s inventio in his History or in his Life of Constantine – not even when, in the latter, he reports what Constantine himself wrote to Makarios about his buildings on Calvary, and eulogizes Helen at length47 – a situation summed up with admirable frankness by Baronio: “Sed magna plane tenet omnes admiratio, quid sit quod Eusebius aedificationem omnium harum basilicarum relegens, et de Helena prolixiorem mentionem faciens, de Cruce ab ea inventa ne verbum quidem”48. And further; the Centurians, like Erasmus, even doubt that Ambrose wrote the De obitu Theodosii because its contents “vehementer contumeliosa sunt in meritum Christi, ac pugnant cum fide”49. The Protestants argue fiercely that the whole saga, upon which Catholic beliefs in the Holy Cross as a relic largely rested, is a post-Constantinian invention. In any case, the story presented other absurdities. Ambrose speaks unequivocally of two nails; had he thought that were three or four nails altogether he does not say50. Other authors embroider on the theme; some maintain that there were three nails – the third nail was put in the helmet of the statue of Constantine, the other two forming the bit and the diadem. Gregory of Tours, following Gregory Nazianzen, said four, that is two in Christ’s feet, two in his hands, and is therefore forced to explain away the loss of the fourth nail; Helen threw it into the Adriatic, thus calming a raging storm51. Baronio wisely concludes that there were probably three or four nails; he recognises that there are many in existence across Europe, and wonders whether many nails were used to hold the Cross together or whether many more than four nails were used to crucify Christ, as was the case with St Agricola (according to Ambrose)52. All told, Eusebius’s celebrated silence on the discovery, followed by the alarming discrepancies between the sources, particularly with respect to the number of nails, and the farrago presented in the Legenda aurea, offered Protestants an easy stick with which to beat the Catholics53. Further delusions about the cross were diffused by later historians, say the Centurians: Constantine “mediocriter in doctrina christiana instructus”, knew that the cross had no inherent power to save the city, but he set up crosses as a reminder of the Passion. But unfortunately we find Socrates talking of the statue of Constantine holding a fragment of the True Cross in the forum – but that cross was also only a reminder of the Lord’s Passion; Nicephorus mentions another cross put up by Constantine which had the power to heal those with “rigor inflammationis”, “oculorum dolores” and “suffusiones”, and there were reports about the miracles which occurred at the Tomb of Constantine and in front of his porphyry statue54. Quite as damaging as the direct assault on the coherence of the stories about the cross was the fact that the Centurians and Chemnitz were able to collect sources demonstrating that there were objections to the cult even at the time of Constantine, by, for example, Arnobius in his Contra gentes55. Chemnitz refines the attack; Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine, described the lavish decoration of his temples but never once refers to crosses, images or statues in them56. Of course images existed, such as those of Daniel and the Lions and the Good Shepherd in the forum, or the crosses in Constantine’s palace (a practice imitated by others such as the Alexandrians described by Rufinus) and the statues of Constantine holding the cross in the fora in Rome and Constantinople; but no such images were to be found in churches57. Eusebius never confirms that such images were set up in churches and clearly, when other, later authors such as Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395), Paulinus (356-431), and Epiphanius (b. 315) speak of statues in churches, they, the Catholics, erroneously assume that the practice should be dated to Constantine’s time 83 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org and before58. The Centurians admit, of course, that Eusebius himself saw paintings of Sts Peter, Paul and Christ, but assert that they were for private use; certainly Eusebius had seen the bronze relief at Panneade (Caesarea Philippi) of Christ and the woman who had haemorrhaged (Matthew, 9, 20-22), but the relief was not in a church, but raised up in front of her door – a celebrated story repeated often59. Aelius Lampridius says that Alexander Severus had statues of his ancestors and of Christ, Abraham, Apollonius of Tyana and Orpheus, but they were kept in his lararium at home, not in church60; the Centurians conclude that images of the Cross could be seen in public and private places, but never in churches, because they were not yet cult-objects. An inevitable consequence of the denial of the Catholic interpretation of the cross was that arrived at by Théodore Beza, for example, in his disputation with Jacob Andreae at Montpellier in 1586; asked whether the cross should be removed from churches, he replied that the Papists gravely misuse the image, adoring it and singing to it. He then recited an example of their idolatrous prayers to the cross (“quae non notata fuit”) and declares that he hates it: “Quae ipse vidi et audivi et fateor me toto corpore perhorrescere, quoties illa facta esse cogito. Nam spes nostra in vera cruce DOMINI NOSTRI IESV CHRISTI, non illa imagine posita est. Quapropter fateor, ME EX ANIMO CRVCIFIXI IMAGINEM DETESTARI. Quae est imago crudelitatis Iudaeorum in Christum; IDEO EAM NON POSSVM FERRE”61. Finally, Chemnitz, in the context of a long discussion of the Libri carolini, one of the most disconcerting of all documents for Catholics on images, alludes to the celebrated dispute between Ionas and Claudius of Turin, who, attacking the cult of relics, had argued that if you worship the cross upon which Christ hung for scarcely six hours – on the grounds that He had touched it – then why not worship virgins, since He was in the Virgin’s womb for 9 months and 2 days, or asses, clothing, cribs, lambs, lances, lions, ships, stones or thorns: “ridiculosa ista omnia sunt et lugenda potius quam scribenda”62. The main elements of the Protestant assault are clear; there was no evidence for the cult of relics or of the cross and the related cerimonie in either the Bible or the apostolic writers. Saints do not retain their powers after death; their remains have no power nor do objects touched by them when they were alive or now that they are dead; the immense series of miracles attributed to relics is the result of a superstitious mania that rapidly increased from the 4th century. The saints are not intercessors with God; lavish translationes did not take place either in biblical or apostolic times. We worship God alone and dedicate churches to Him alone; the cult of the relics of saints in no way justifies the construction of great churches – a cornerstone of 16th century Catholic attitudes towards magnificent ecclesiastical architecture; we should not put crosses in churches; these cults and all the related cerimonie were encouraged particularly by Constantine, who was not well educated in Christian mores, to attract non-believers by the introduction of pagan practices; and even at the time, there were powerful objections from authoritative figures. II. The Catholic Defence of the Cross and the Cult of Relics The Catholic counterattack – from Eck63, Catarino, Braun64, Martiall65, Harpsfeldt and Cope66, Molanus67, Baronio, Bellarmino, and on to the greatest compendium of knowledge about the cross and the cult of relics, by Jacob Greutzer68 – was massive69. Trent, followed immediately by other councils, reasserted the cult of images and relics with the utmost force; and Carlo Borromeo gave concrete form to certain aspects of that defence, as we shall see70. The most extensive rebuttals of the Centurians’ assaults on the cross before Greutzer’s were those developed in the 1560’s by John Martiall, and Nicholas Harpsfeldt with Alan Cope, whose treatise is cast in the form of a strenuous dialogue between Irenaeus, an Englishman, and Critobulus, a German71. Harpsfeldt and Cope pour as much abuse on the Centurians – who are “impudentissimi”, “armati atroci calamo”, “fatui”, “stulti” – as Cochlaeus does on Calvin. Catholic writers set themselves the unenviable task of asserting that not only pieces of the True Cross, but also images of it, were acceptable as cult-objects. We worship the cross because although it had brought Christ misery, it was our Salvation72. But, say Heretics, it is arbitrary to select for worship only some instruments touched by Christ during the Passion; why – asks Claudius, followed by many others, particularly Calvin and Monday – should we not worship all sepulchres, nails, thorns, lances, whips, columns, Virgins, bread and wine, ships, lambs and donkeys73? The reply is that the first cross and its fragments were relics because they had contact with the Christ’s body; all other crosses are images. The true Cross and its particulae, as well as all images of it, have a unique meaning, whilst all the other objects have other uses. The Cross is now a holy object after its ancient pagan use as an instrument of torture and death74. A collision with the Protestants over Constantine’s role in the development of the cults was inevitable, and Catholic writers do very badly, often ignoring Eusebius’s crucial omission of the story of Helen’s inventio, and fudging the numerous dislocations in the later versions of the 84 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 5. The Crucifix over the entrance to the choir of the Duomo in Milano (after F. Cassina, Le fabbriche più cospicue di Milano, Milano 1840-1864). tale. Harpsfeldt and Cope’s defensive tirade is unimpressive; they merely hope to bury doubts about the story of Helen by citing innumerable later sources about the inventio and the miracles produced by the cross and its images75; Greutzer argues feebly and speciously that if the cross seen by Constantine was only a sign of “agnitio”, “fides”, and an “invocatio ac professio verae religionis” and not itself an object of veneration, why, in that case, did God not say “IN FIDE VINCE” and not “IN HOC VINCE”76. To prove the efficacy of the True Cross, Martiall reports the celebrated story of how Melania sent Paulinus of Nola a fragment of it from Jerusalem. Paulinus then sent his friend Severus a piece when the latter was trying to found a church but lacked a relic essential for consecration: “Accipite magnum in modico munus; et in segmento pene atomo hastae brevis, sumite munimentum praesentis, et pignus aeternae salutis”. A fire broke out at Nola which threatened the church and city; Paulinus eventually subdued it with the fragment of the cross77. Catholic writers attempting to justify Constantine’s practices were forced to suggest that a massive, post-Constantinian tradition about Helen cancels out the absence of early sources – the classic Catholic manoeuvre enunciated definitively at Trent of justifying retrospectively actions not specifically documented in the Bible or in sources of the apostolic era78. Catholics argue that Constantine sanctioned the use of the cross, but with a crucial change of meaning; under the Romans the cross had been an instrument of degradation and death79; but he caused the cross to be loved, and forbad crucifixion80. He set up a great statue of himself with the cross and inscription: “Hoc salutifero signo et vero fortitudinis documento, urbem vestram a iugo tyranni asservi et senatum populumque romanum pristinae dignitati ac amplitudini reddidi”81; he used the cross in his own palace, and as Martiall says, “Some tymes defendinge his face with the signe of salvation, somtymes shewinge forth the victorious ensigne and banner, which he set foorth to be sene of al men in a certayne high paynted table, hanged vp before his courte gate”82. Harpsfeldt and Cope and others enjoy ridiculing the Centurians for saying, on the one hand, that Constantine encouraged and initiated such errors because he did not know much theology and, on the other hand, for describing him as “de universa ecclesia Christi optime meritum”83. The Catholic defence, then, consisted largely in sidestepping the details of the story of Helen, and instead, of throwing mountains of later references to the miracles wrought by the True Cross and its images at the Catholics84. Thus Martiall cites Cassiodorus; just as a coin can be stamped with the portrait of the emperor, so the cross is imprinted on the faithful, driving away the devil: “Crux est enim humilium invicta tuitio, superborum deiectio, victoria Christi, perditio Diaboli, infernorum destructio, coelestium confirmatio, mors infidelium, iustorum vita” followed by a quotation from Chrysostom on the virtues of the Cross85. Many authors attest to this fact starting with Athanasius and Lactantius86. Amongst the innumerable proofs of the efficacy of the cross both as a relic and as an image in curing and driving away daemones, Harpsfeldt and Cope cite, as did many others, Augustine’s famous chapter about miracles, in which we find the celebrated story of Augustine and Alypius in Carthage witnessing the miracle of Innocentia, who had breast cancer which was cured when she made the sign of the cross over the affected area at the baptismal font. Harpsfeldt and Cope also rehearse Bede’s story about King Oswald, who set up a cross before a battle, which he accordingly won under the sign of the cross; later, bits that were cut off the cross and put in water healed the sick when they drank it87. The defence continues; the Magdeburgers were also entirely wrong to say that the use of the cross was a novelty, forgetting Theodosius’ law about not putting it on floors88; for saying that the use of the cross was new but soon degenerated into superstition89; that in the time of Justin the Martyr (mid 2nd century) the sign of the cross was not used during baptism90; and that many writers testify to the merely superstitious 85 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 6. Ambrogio Mazenta, project for a column for the cross-roads in Milano (Milano Biblioteca Ambrosiana). 7. Ambrogio Mazenta, project for a column for the cross-roads in Milano (Milano Biblioteca Ambrosiana). use of the cross in the 4th century and after. Harpsfeldt and Cope seek to demonstrate that the cult was absolutely not a superstitious novelty through their interlocuter, Irenaeus, with dozens of citations such as Prudentius, Cathemerinon, Hymn 6: “Frontem locumque cordis Crucis figura signet. Crux pellit omne crimen; fugiunt crucem tenebrae; Tali dicata signo Mens fluctuare nescit”. The cross should indeed be used during baptism, and should be kept constantly before our eyes and minds – quoting Dionysius the Areopagite, Justin, Cyprian, Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius and Gregory of Nyssa91. The Centurians lied when they assert that Pope Sergius (688) was the first author to say that the cross should be adored and kissed be- cause the practice is already documented by Evagrius (c. 536-c. 600)92; and Tertullian shows that even some pagans worshipped it93. At Nicea II (787) it had been definitively established that honour goes to the prototype, not the image94. But there remained a problem for Catholics; if latria was the adoration directed at Christ and God, how should that directed at relics and images of them be defined? Aquinas had said that we should honour the cross, despite its being the instrument of Christ’s torture and death, because it was spes salutis and the sign of His triumph (Coloss., 2; I Cor., 1) and was connected with Christ or God through repraesentatio and contactus; the adoratio latriae owed to the True Cross and Christ is different from the adoratio latriae owed to the particulae or the noncontact images of the cross; latria was due to all of them but latria of different sorts95. In 1552 Catarino, following Aquinas, as did many others, says that, indeed, we can adore images of the Crucifixion with latria, the same type of worship that we reserve for Christ, because we can worship these images with latria formaliter (for what it represents) and not materialiter (for its physical characteristics)96. So too Francesco Turriani (1572) reports that Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople, maintained that the image of Christ and Christ himself “eodem cultu coli debere” because the image and that which is represented are the same, not, obviously )(&"#! -%,́&-", but rather &*-'"#! µ-' $!´ +-" – “habitudinali participatione, non univoce, sed analogice”97. But Catholic writers, Borromeo of course included, were also anxious to show that the cross had always been ubiquitous; that people had, since time immemorial, made the sign of the cross on themselves98. Catholics constantly cited Jerome’s celebrated letter to Laeta (403): “Even in Rome now heathenism languishes in solitude. Those who once were the Gods of the gentiles are left beneath their deserted pinnacles to the company of owls and night-birds. The army standards bear the emblem of the cross. The purple robes of kings and the jewels that sparkle on their diadems are adorned with the sign of the gibbet (patibulum) that has brought us salvation. Today even the Egyptian Serapis has become a Christian; Marnas mourns in his prison at Gaza, and fears continually that his temple will be overthrown”99; and Rufinus famously described the ubiquity of the cross in Alexandria100. Above all, Catholics needed to show that the cross was present in churches from the earliest times; so Lactantius (?), in his Carmen de passione domini: “Quisquis ades mediique subis in limina templi. / Siste parum insontemque tuo pro crimine passum / Respice me; me corde conde animo, me in pectore serva. / Cerne manus clavis 86 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org fixas tractosque lacertos, / Atque ingens lateri vulnus, cerne inde fluorem sanguineum fossosque pedes artusque cruentos”101; Nilus, in his famous letter to Olympiodorus about infantile decoration in the church of the Holy Apostles mentions one cross at the east and others in the smaller chapels of the church102; St Maximus of Turin compares the mast to which Odysseus was tied to save him from the sirens with the cross of Christ in churches saving us from spiritual shipwreck103; and they cite various councils of the Church – Orléans, Tours, the Council “in Trullo” (691) – to demonstrate that canon law required that the cross should be present in every chapel and oratory104. The authors who influenced Carlo Borromeo most with respect to the universal potency and ubiquity of the cross were presumably Ambrose and Chrysostom. Ambrose’s Oratio de obitu Theodosii describes the cross variously as “victoria, vexillum salutatis, Christus triumphans, palma vitae eternae, redemptio, gladius, quo peremptus diabolus, vita, salus, divinum vexillum, remedium immortalitatis, sacramentum salutis” – echoed, as we shall see, in one of Borromeo’s decrees on the cross. Chrysostom includes some of the most eloquent of all writing on the universal reach and power of the cross; it is the most powerful of all apotropaic symbols, just like its precursor, the Brazen Serpent; it is the cause of all happiness, the end of discord, the basis of peace, the guardian of the world, the destroyer of temples, the repeller of idols, and so on, with long lists of its virtues105. In the Quod Christus fit Deus the once-accursed cross (Deut., 21, 23) is now adorable; it is wanted by everybody – princes, subjects, women, men, virgins, wives, servants, freedmen; it is everywhere – in houses, piazzas, in the deserts, streets, mountains, hills, valleys, at sea, on ships, on islands, in beds, clothes, weapons, bedrooms, on silver and gold vases, in ivory, in parts of the body badly affected, in the possessed, in war, peace, day and night, in dances etc. Chrysostom then mentions its efficacy against the Devil, and enumerates many other miraculous qualities by which it can protect us against evil; the cross breaks the bronze doors of hell, the stronghold of the Devil, it rescues the whole world from damnation, and so on106. Trent stoutly reaffirmed the Cult of Relics; saints are indeed intercessors with God, the presence of their remains and of objects that had been touched by them, properly certified, was a potent road to salvation, and churches without relics could not be consecrated107. How then did Catholics protect the cult of relics in general and the practice of translatio in particular? The defence was based on passages such as Acts, 19, 11-12: “And God wrought spe- cial miracles by the hand of Paul: so that from his body were brought unto the sick handerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them”108. Indirect contact retained the power to cure; but Protestants say that this did not apply to the dead or their personal effects. Many authors invoked the authority of Augustine, Contra Faustum, where he asserts that praying to a saint always meant praying to God: “[…] ita tamen, ut nulli martyrum, sed ipsi Deo martyrum, sed quod offertur, offertur Deo, qui martyres coronavit”109. This was a position of fundamental importance for Catholics since the justification of the cult of saints in turn validated the proliferation of magnificent churches and shrines nominally dedicated to the saints. Lippomano in 1553 expresses the point perfectly in his Confermatione (1553): “Ma con tutto questo, che male è? che idolatria? se il tempio o l’altare fabricato e dedicato solamente a Dio (essendo nel mondo tante Chiese e altari) si chiami col nome di un santo, per distinguerlo da gli altri, il quale habbia ivi il suo corpo sepulto, o qualche reliquia servata, overo sia invocato come particulare advocato da quelli che hanno edificato il tempio o l’altare o lo frequentano, acciò che faccia l’intercessore appresso l’omnipotente Iddio per essi, e per tutti quelli che vanno lì per orare? Certamente questa cosa è conveniente e honesta. ll che attesta anche Damasceno dicendo i tempii sono da essere edificati da noi a Dio nel nome de santi e portati frutti da chi honora la memoria loro […] Havendo noi bisogno di misericordia e compontione, fedelmente honoriamo, in salmi, hymni, e ode spirituali, i santi da quali Dio è sommamente adorato. Drizziamo a loro statue, e imagini visibili, e noi stessi diventiamo per imitatione de le loro virtù, statue loro e effigie animate. Et fin qui parla Damasceno110. Dicemo adunque che a Dio solo si fabricano chiese e altari, e si offeriscono sacrifici, ma i tempi e altari in suo honore fabricati, per evitare la confusione in tanta moltitudine, si chiamano con i nomi di questo e quello’altro santo, e in questo non si commette né idolatria né peccato. Et questo istesso attesta il padre Sant’Agostino nel luogo citato contra Fausto, ma male allegato dagli adversarii. Dice egli così formalmente; il populo Christiano celebra le memorie de martyri con [182r] religiosa solennità, e per eccitare l’imitatione e per accompagnarsi a i loro meriti e per essere aiutato con le orationi, così però, che a niun martyre ma ad esso solo Dio de martyri, benché ne le memorie de martyri, costituamo gli altari”111. Again and again Protestants denied that the Bible or the traditio apostolica justified translationes in their Catholic form. Catholics, ignoring the details of the Protestant arguments, and 87 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 8. The inventio of Gervasius and Protasius (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After E. Brivio, M. Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio narrata nell’antico coro del Duomo di Milano, Milano 1966). 9. The translatio of Sts Gervasius and Protasius (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). choosing to forget Roman law with respect to the transference of bodies from one place to another, compile great lists of what seemed to be translationes112. Against Calvin’s view that there was no foundation in the scriptures for translationes and their cult, Catholics simply list the same biblical mentions of relics; eg. Joseph buries his father (Genesis, 50, 12-14); Moses takes Joseph’s bones from Egypt (Exodus, 13, 19). Eusebius documents the existence of miracleperforming relics, as is clear from the famous case of Polycarpus’s remains, cited often by Baronio as proof of the reverence with which saints’ relics were treated and the importance of recording the day of martyrdom113. Catholics admit that there were fraudulent uses of relics; but against that they cite the description in Ambrose of the miracle caused by the remains of Sts Gervasius and Protasius when the blind man saw again – witnessed by Augustine himself – for Cinquecento Catholics a perfect, early example of the efficacy of a contact relic, in this case a sudarium114. The Bible contains no prohibition against keeping fragments of the saints and their personal effects; worshipping relics does not incline men to idolatry because we worship the prototype, not the image, and we are not, like the Jews, naturally inclined to idolatry. It is not forbidden to put relics on altars; and the fact that the relics are inanimate is not important because God works through them. It is true that there is no biblical authority for a number of relics – an admission regarded as fatal by the Protestants – but that is no reason to disbelieve them given the weight of later evidence115. Cochlaeus, for example, launched a characteristically ferocious counter-attack to Calvin in 1549 in his De sacris reliquiis – of which Carlo Borromeo owned a copy116, but he remained spectacularly silent on the problem of the endless replication of obviously false relics, and defends those who worship relics but do not know that they are false, by saying that ignorance is their defence117. Catholic defences of the cult of relics reached their apogee towards the end of the Cinquecento with Baronio’s Annales (1588 ff) and Bellarmino’s Disputationes (1593 ff)118. Baronio assembles examples of their healing properties, the celebrated story of the haemorrhaging woman or of the sudaria and semicinctia of Paul (Acts, 19, 12), whilst calling on Gennadius who condemns anyone who disagrees as Eunomian and Vigilantian119. He lists at great length every possible relic and miracle and seeks to demonstrate that the 88 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org elation, 6, 9 (“ostensae sunt in coelo animae martyrum sub altari, quia corpora eorum in terris sub altaribus requiescunt”) and arriving at Ambrose125, and is confirmed by a canon of the Council of Carthage of 401 which said that a church could not be dedicated unless the relics of the relevant saint were present126. 10. Ambrose consecrates the basilica in Florence (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). fragments of saints’ bodies can and should be buried separately, because particulae have the same potency as whole bodies120. He is particularly anxious to prove that the cross was recognised in all its power as early as 60 AD121. Similarly Bellarmino’s massive defence rehearses the biblical mentions of what Catholics were desperate to define as translationes, especially splendid ones; the usual examples of Moses transporting the bones of Joseph from Egypt to Palestine, then those of Peter and Paul ad catacumbas and then to the Vatican122. He gathers dozens of examples from the 4th century and beyond – uselessly, in one sense, since Protestants did not doubt that translationes took place then, but rather deplored the efflorescence of such an unjustifiable practice; Sozomenus’ references to those of St Babylas, Paul the Confessor and Meletius of Antioch and many others from Gregory Nazianzen, Paolinus of Nola and Chrysostom123. Obviously Ambrose’s descriptions of the translations of Vitalis and Agricola at Bologna and of Gervasius and Protasius in Milan loom large as the most precocious sources of such Catholic practice in the West124. That relics should be put in churches under the altar is proved by citing various texts starting with Rev- III. Carlo Borromeo’s Urban Crosses Carlo Borromeo had little need to intervene in the physical fabric of Milan because much had already been done by the Spanish in the 1540’s and 1550’s – straightening and widening streets, improving drainage, knocking down obstructions and organising markets according to function, and so on127. How then did Borromeo reassert the Catholic case for the cult of relics and of images in the streets of Milan in the face of the massive assaults we have just examined? Processions were temporary events, even when repeated annually or more frequently: but the erection of crosses in the busiest parts of the town constituted one of the few means available for Borromeo permanently to safe-guard the sanctity of the city outside churches128; and it seems that he was the first Italian archbishop to reintroduce the custom on such a large scale in the Cinquecento129. When Carlo arrived in Milan the city already had at least six old wooden columns with crosses130. These included a cross near San Vittore al Teatro which existed at the time of Ferrante Gonzaga and was later dedicated to St Ambrose131; the cross set up in 1358 when Galeazzo Visconti demolished the church of San Protasio (in the area of the present Piazza Castello), which was later dedicated to that saint132; and another from the 14th century presumably originally near the church of San Marco133. In 1573 and 1579 Borromeo issued decrees setting up altars with columns of wood or stone surmounted by crosses at the cross-roads of Milan, often accompanied by frescoes or other images of saints, and in 1578, he established compagnie to organise services at them134. All sources agree that one of the functions of the crosses set up during and after the plague in 1576-77 was to help the populace avoid contagion; from their houses they could see and hear the mass held at the altars below the columns135. In the elaborate description of the procession for the relics of St Simplicianus in 1582 (hereafter the Description), we read, in reference to the year of the plague: “Ve ne sono molte [columns with crosses] per Milano et furono introdotte a questo modo; prima era costume di questa città di piantare una croce di legno nelli triccii, il quale costume era andato in disuso. L’illustrissimo S. Prassede lo rinnovò con un Decreto Provinciale, ma non era poi così bene ossequito, come fu l’anno del- 89 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org la peste, che fu del MDLXXVII, posciache non potendo la gente uscire di casa perchè li R. Governanti facevano fare la quarantina a tutti per estirpare questo male dalla città136; l’illustrissimo S. Prassede, acciò non restassero quelle anime prive de suoi bisogni spirituali, fece piantare in diversi compiti molte croci grande di legno, alle quali era appoggiato un altare, sopra il quale si celebrava, et la gente senza uscire di casa dalle proprie finestre intraveniva a questo santissimo sacramento, dopo il quale il sacerdote da quell’altare cominciava le littanie et altre preci et le persone dalle proprie finestre respondevano di maniera che la prudenza di questo pastore havea giudiciosamente occorso alli disordini della peste la quale suole mettere in abandono le cose spirituali. Queste croce di legno sono poi sta mutate in colonne di pietra e tengono il nome di crocette”137. When the plague exploded in the autumn of 1576, quarantine was imposed on the citizens and in 1579 Borromeo repeated his order of 1573 and speeded up the erection of the altars and crosses138. By 1580 the number of columns had reached 11, and by the death of Carlo in 1584, 19139. None of the 19 columns survives in its original state; and few contemporary sources tell us specifically what went on top of them – certainly crosses, as in Cerano’s celebrated painting recording the first one set up at Cordusio in 1577 (ill. 2) or, in some cases, the Crucifixion. There appears to be no evidence that any of Carlo’s crosses were associated with the archbishop-saints of Milan, as they certainly were under Federico Borromeo. Giovanni Battista Casale, an eye-witness, tells us about five of them; the columns near San Satiro (1576)140, San Giacomo (1583)141, and San Babylas (1584) bore crosses142, although in the case of the latter, the St Simplicianus Description refers to a metal crucifix143. Other sources tells us that crosses surmounted the columns near San Giovanni in Conca144, in the Corso di Porta Vercellina (1581)145, at San Geronzio al Ponte Vetero (1576)146, and a crucifix that at Sant’Anastasia, near the Porta Nuova (1579)147. Casale seems to suggest that the column at Cordusio (1577) bore the figure of Christ; but his mention of the “Christo” may just be his way of referring to the cross and no other evidence bears him out; the original inscription speaks only of “CRVCIS VEXILLVM” or “CRVCIS SIGNVM”148; and the same applies to his mention of “Christo” on the column near San Giovanni laterano, of which Casale himself had helped to put the capital in place149. We have no specific information that the other Borromean columns bore anything other than crosses or crucifixes. When Federico Borromeo became bishop in 1595, he set up many more inside and outside the city and rebuilt others in part with the aim of denying the possibility of sanctuary to fugitives from the law. Federico not only rebuilt the majority of Carlo’s wooden and stone crosses, he also changed their meaning. On 2 July 1604 he invited the Prior of the Compagnia della Croce, Andrea Buono, to allocate a representation of a Mystery of the Passion to each column to be brought out for special occasions. In 1610, he assigned saints from the diocesis of Milan as protectors of the crosses and their neighbourhoods150. In 1644, his successor, Cardinal Cesare Monti, issued new rules for the Confraternities which looked after the 43 crosses then in the city. The sources that describe Federico’s activities – Giussani, Guenzati, Ripamonti, Rivola and, later, Latuada – obviously described the crosses as they were after his initiatives – not as they were under Carlo; and the activities of the Austrians, and particularly of the architect Leopold Pollak involved the demolition of many, hiding forever their original nature151. After the arrival of the plague in 1576 Carlo’s crosses helped the populace to avoid contagion; but his revival of the practice of putting up crosses in the city had been announced in 1573 and was also a highly polemical act of orthodox doctrinal revivalism152. In his declaration of 1573 Carlo announced that the wood of the Cross from which Christ hung is the ornament of Christian piety, the altar of the heavenly holocaust; it was an outstanding sign of the piety of ancient Christians that the Cross appeared not only in churches but also inside and outside houses, on walls and in porches, and indeed everywhere in the city153. The Cross is the supreme trophaeum of the Christians, the absolute monument of divine forgiveness and an eternal witness declaring to all that the faithful have nothing in common with the enemies of the Cross of Christ, namely the Jews, other foreigners and heretics154. The Cross, made of wood or stone, should therefore be put up throughout the city and diocese at the busiest crossroads; the more often the faithful see the cross, the more they will be able to elevate themselves to the memory of the wood of the Cross, to its sacred mystery and then to the true glory; moreover, the archbishop commands that, in order to preserve the cult and veneration of the cross, its image should never be put in the ground or any place where it could become dirty. Borromeo’s declaration pullulates with allusions to the battles with the Protestants about the Cross outlined above. (1) He insists on the identity of the signum crucis or trophaeum with the crucifixion and the eucharist155. Carlo’s crosses were blessed and consecrated as were the altars below them. They had the capacity to raise 90 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 11. The route of the Procession (drawn by G. Ceriani Sebregondi). 1. San Simpliciano. 2. Porta Comensis. 3. Porta Beatrice. 4. Via Brera. 5. San Silvestro. 6. Strada verso San Paolo (Monte Napoleone). 7. San Giorgio al Pozzo Bianco (destroyed). 8. Arcivescovado. 9. Duomo. 10. Piazza dei Mercanti. 11. Strada San Tommaso in Terra amara (Via Broletto, Via Ponte Vetero). the minds of the onlooker to Christ’s supreme sacrifice, referring to the standard Catholic position that if the prototype – Christ crucified – merited latria, then so did the images if considered formaliter, not materialiter, and to the Tridentine justification of the necessity for external and material assistance in drawing the mind up to God156. (2) The cross was ubiquitous in the early history of the Church; here Borromeo alludes no doubt to many of Chrysostom’s homilies but perhaps most obviously to the famous passage in Rufinus157. (3) The cross is apotropaic in that it is hateful to Jews, heretics and others; that the cross has extraordinary apotropaic powers was insisted on by an endless stream of early Christian sources (mentioned above) and early 17th century writers say the same thing about Carlo’s crosses. For example, Guenzati, writing in his life of Federico Borromeo, reports that from 1576 the crosses were intended “santificare la città dopo tanti orrori di morte, ed acciochè respirasse dopo il buio di tante tempeste, al mirare nella croce la tavola fedele della salute, e la stella polare. Erano queste sagri trofei della morte sconfitta, e dello sdegno placato di Dio, che mantenendo su gli occhi di tutti l’atto tragico del Calvario potevano cavare anche da cuori impietrici vere stille di penitenza. Erano piante salubri, dalla cui ombra fuggivano li mostri infernali, e rappresentando il mistico serpe, facevano vomitare il veleno a chi per anche fomentava l’angue d’abisso nel seno. Come già Marc’Antonio in Roma allo spiegar in pubblico le spoglie trapannate dal ferro e imporporate dal sangue di Giulio Cesare risvegliava le fiamme della vendetta nel popolo romano, così il prudentissimo e santo arcivescovo con esporre in pubblico l’immagine del crocifisso e stampava ne’ cuori la pietà, e rimoveva ogni pietra di scandalo, e ogni aura infetta di parole oscene”158. That the existence of the Brazen Serpent – both an image and brazen – did not contravene the commandment against making images (Exodus, 20, 4; Numbers, 21, 8-9) was accepted almost universally by Catholics: first, for them, it was obviously the precursor to Christ’s cross (John, 3, 14); second, it was originally an !" ´ &$%$#, but then, because the Jews began to worship it idol- 91 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org atrously, it was rightly destroyed by Ezekiel (2 Kings, 18, 4)159. The equation of the Serpent with the Crucifix had, of course, been accepted in Milan; it was represented above the door versus Compito of the Duomo in a project-drawing of 1534 by Vincenzo Seregni (ill. 3)160. In 1548, Conrad Braun, in a book owned by Carlo Borromeo, had assembled many biblical and patristic sources on the equation, for example, Tertullian, Contra Iudaeos; and Borromeo’s close associate Silvio Antoniano, alludes to it as well161. Perhaps the most spectacular example of the equation is to be found in the frontispiece to the book by Pietro Galesini, Borromeo’s most important patristic scholar, on the dedication of the Vatican obelisk by Sixtus V in 1586; the inscription proclaims that just as Moses erected the Brazen Serpent to heal the sick, so Sixtus, another Moses, set the bronze sign of the Cross on the obelisk as a cure for the afflicted (ill. 4)162. What then was Borromeo’s attitude to the Brazen Serpent which still stands at the left of the nave of Sant’Ambrogio? When he visited the basilica in November 1566 he noted the presence of a “certain” brazen serpent on top of a column which was “popularly” regarded as the one that Moses made in order to drive away the plague; he then comments on the belief which induced mothers to bring their sick children to be cured by it at Easter; Borromeo uses the word superstitio – nearer to “heresy” than “superstition” in the 16th century – which means that he did not believe it. Borromeo left the column and the serpent in the church; but because he made no use at all of it during the plague or at any other time, one has the impression that for him it was certainly not a relic, only an image, and not a very important one. It is not difficult to see why; whilst the story of the Holy Nail is discussed at length and for the first time by none other than St Ambrose, the available sources on the provenance of the Brazen Serpent preserved in Sant’Ambrogio in Milan had long ago sunk into a morass of contradictions of persons and dates from which it was difficult to elicit anything authoritative; for example, one reads that the serpent was a relic from a temple of Aesculapius on the site of the basilica; that Theodosius (or Ambrose himself) had found the serpent and the Holy Nail in a shop in Rome and had given them both to St Ambrose, who set up the former in Sant’Ambrogio and the latter in Santa Tecla; or that, 700 years later, the serpent was presented by the Emperor of the east, Nikephoros, to Arnolphus II, Bishop of Milan, when he was in Constantinople for the wedding of Theofano163. Borromeo’s attitude, however, did not prevent later authors from regarding the serpent and the column in the church as Moses’ originals; Bosca, in his learned treatise on the subject of 1675 illustrates his belief with an engraving inscribed above; “SERPENS AENEVS AMBROSIANAE BASILICAE”; and below, “Cicatrices serpentis aenei postquam confractus est ab Ezechia rege ac rursus in suas partes coivit, indicantur literis ABC”. The breaks in the column and snake resulted from Ezekiel’s attack on them164. A final point made by Borromeo in his decree of 1573 is that the Cross should not be represented on the ground or other places where it would get dirty; here he refers to a series of acts of councils of the Church and other types of document culminating in his own Instructiones165. The establishment of images of the Cross in the streets was but part of a consistent policy by Borromeo to reassert the fact that the cross was the supreme symbol of Christianity; another spectacular example was the decision to rebuild the giant crucifix at the entrance to the choir of the Duomo in Milan, above the altare maggiore, to a design by Pellegrino which constituted a powerful reassertion and reminder, in line with Trent, of the fact that “the very same Christ is contained and offered in bloodless manner [in the mass at the altare maggiore below] who made a bloody sacrifice of himself once for all on the cross” (ill. 5)166. IV. Ambrogio Mazenta’s Crosses There was a fascinating sequel to the crossbuilding campaigns of Carlo and Federico, a mixture of piety and classical erudition represented by the astonishing suggestion of Ambrogio Mazenta made after 1610 that important cross-roads in Milan should be provided with great columns that functioned simultaneously as a constant source of water, a giant clepshydra and a memorial of the Holy Cross and that Carlo’s old crosses could be turned into sun-dials [cf. Appendix]167. Mazenta’s description of the project is written in occasionally incoherent Latin and accompanied by two drawings, one of a circular column, the other of greek-cross plan (ill. 6, 7). Mazenta claims that it would very advantagious to build a series of hollow columns, much taller than the existing monoliths, which draught animals (!) and men could ascend, and up which heavy objects and water could be conveyed. Such columns could be built at the most frequented cross-roads as triumphal memorials of the Holy Cross, as in Carlo’s day: Christ will be adored, albeit by means of an augustan cross (he explains the use of that epithet later) and the city will be safe-guarded. The monolithic columns would be a perpetual reminder of human Redemption; they would be easy to ascend and would provide stunning views of the churches, houses, gardens and squares in and outside Milan; they would al- 92 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 12. The Baptism of Augustine (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). so be easy to build, cheap and elegant. However, it is impossible to make them from monochrome monoliths hollowed out; they would be far too heavy and could not be transported. Rather they could be made of stones of different types and colour fitted together with spiralling vine-like grooves and channels as high as one wants; the problem with enormous monoliths is that they are often irrevocably damaged by some natural defect or fractured by frost or heat or even by the seed of a fig-tree deposited in a crevice by some bird. But columns like those of Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, which are not monolithic, are easily patched up, as they were by Sixtus V168. Hollow columns are easier to ascend, and decorations and equipment can be taken up them for the Feast days of the Cross when there are celebrations with music and fireworks and great gatherings at the cross roads. The columns could function as reservoirs, a constant source of water raised high up which would include an obvious reference to the Cross of Christ and Moses’ staff, by which stones were transformed into a constant source of water (Exodus, 17, 6). Milan is a city rich in water and as St Ambrose says, the city owes its name to that fact169; but because of the flatness of the land, there is a lack of strong outflows, although there are springs everywhere. Technology can help us accomplish what Nature has not achieved – water conducted to the tops of buildings. We can build the columns with foundations deep enough to reach the water, which will be brought up by tubes to the top of the column by a system of weights attached to ropes or soft metal chains (to prevent them being distorted by extremes of heat and dryness); weights, ascending and descending alternately, will drive the lids of two great bronze tanks at the bottom of the column up and down so that the water in them will be forced up tubes in the sides of the column. After the water has been driven to the top of the column, it could descend (presumably on the outside) in little spiral channels, and miraculously the meta sudans built by the ancients in the forum will have been be rebuilt170. But if both weights were to be let go simultaneously, the water would be rammed with maximum force through the tubes so that we would see a cataclysmic flood and rainbows, as in storms, with claps of thunder and lighting, which would be most entertaining for citizens and visitors to watch. The water raised-up in these columns would be very useful for workshops, machines, the irrigation of gardens, cleaning away rubbish, alleviating the heat and cold. The column would also be useful for telling the times of the year, the months and the days, a clock, in effect, indicating the hours in winter and summer, equal and unequal days and nights and the movements of the sun and stars – useful for doctors, farmers and everybody in the city. Great bells could sound the time in a sort of clepsydra or water clock which we could revive, after centuries of ignorance had lost this Graeco-Roman invention. Various wheels and cogs could be moved by the falling water and pressure of the weights – the water and the air forced together could turn a wheel called a " #(# µ$'%!"$& by the Greeks, and the trumpeting sound would alert the citizens to important appointments. Statues of various types with pointers can indicate the movements of the moon and trajectories of the planets; entering and exiting in concert they can sing angelic hymns and psalms for the admiring crowds below. Few could undertake these wonderful projects because money is usually spent on other things – gaming, hunting, clients, hangers-on, etc. – and because of the intrinsic difficulty of the work; but, one must remember that all these things were in common use amongst the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans as we know from Heron, Vitruvius and Pliny and other ancient authors – as we can see (he adds mysteriously) from some ruined buildings in Milan. Today there are men of even small means who have re- 93 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org the words of Pliny; the obelisk on the Campo laid out by Augustus was a wonderful device by which to tell the time; a pavement was laid out appropriate to the height of the obelisk which included bronze strips by which the shadow of the obelisk could be measured as it shortened and lengthened; Manlius the mathematician put a gilt ball at the top on which the shadow concentrated itself; he understood the principle that without the ball, the shadow of the pinnacle of the obelisk would have lacked definition (!)171. 13. Milano, Arcivescovado, door (photo R. Schofield). vived such practices and there are also erudite men who can rival the ancients in architecture, painting, music, poetry and sculpture, who would certainly be capable of excelling the ancients when it comes to pneumatic and hydraulic devices. We need a maecenas to encourage us; but if this very detailed description is becoming tedious, at least consider, with the help of my drawings, the usefulness of the hollow column, the raised water and the clock with the bells. Furthermore, the small columns with crosses in Milan – presumably Carlo’s remaining crosses – could be converted to another wonderful use – by laying out pavements with circles and lines incised in them indicating the times of day with the columns functioning as sundials. Thus the Milanese contemplating the cross of Christ will realise from the thunderbolts and periods of darkness that we are instructed no less by the dark depths of the eclipse of his Passion than by the splendours of His Glory; and we will be reminded that men’s labours are pointless without the presence and help of God, just as the lines of the sundial are useless without the light of the Sun. Wise tradesmen will appreciate the way it tells them the time, and what they have to do and when, and that Time, once gone, never returns and that vast changes of fortune can occur in the twinkling of an eye. This exceptional project can be illustrated by V. Defending the Cult; the Holy Nail and the Relics of the Saints Borromeo presented a series of decrees about relics of which the most important was that of the 4th Provincial Council of May 1576. Relics must not be touched and no door or window should be created so that they could be seen. All the documentation for the identification must be carefully recorded, citing Trent, Session 25172. Relics should not be kept in private houses but must be safe-guarded in church in a well protected but visible place, citing his own Instructiones, soon to be published173. If the relics were kept underground they must be protected by a grill so that they could not be walked over; they must have identifying inscriptions and a list of the relics on a bronze, marble or stone tablet “in cappellae maioris columna latereve aut in gremio ecclesiae, loco aperto, ac perspicuo, ea tabella parieti calce conglutinata in omnium conspectu sit” – just as Borromeo recommended in the Instructiones and was to do in Santa Prassede in Rome in the 1580’s174. The relevant documentation must be kept in the sacristy: there follow rules for how they should be displayed to the public in the church and in processions175. This legislation was intended in part to ensure as far as possible, given the primaeval state of forensics in the period, that relics were genuine – an anxiety reflex triggered by the Protestant attacks described above. Borromeo’s reassertion of the cult of relics in the 1570’s and 1580’s included two principal elements: the processions for the Holy Nail from 1576 and the translationes of the relics of saints – above all that of St Simplicianus and others (1582). The defence also comprised two very elaborate documents; the Memoriale (1579) and particularly the Lettera pastorale on St Simplicianus (1582). The immediate motive for the revival of the cult of these relics was the protection of the city from the most terrible plague of the Cinquecento, that of 1576 – God’s punishment inflicted on an errant population176. First, the Nail; as we have seen, the glaring absence from Eusebius of any mention of Helen’s discovery of the Holy Nail, its later appearance in Ambrose’s De obitu Theodosii and the dis- 94 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org crepancies between the later versions of the story had left much room for manoeuvre for Protestant critics. Moreover, the various accounts of how the Nail arrived in Milan from Constantinople were embarassingly inconsistent; did Ambrose himself find it in a shop in Rome, a scene represented in the paintings of the cloister of San Pietro Celestino in Milan; or did Theodosius give it, and the Brazen Serpent, to Ambrose in Milan, who then put the Nail in the church of Santa Tecla, where, indeed, some say he delivered the oration De obitu Theodosii177? Whatever the chaos reigning in the sources about the arrival of the Nails in Milan (and Monza), Borromeo could point to, and believe in Ambrose’s own words on the matter. The Nail was certainly in Santa Tecla as early as 1389 whence it was transported to the Duomo by Bishop Carlo II of Forlì in 1461 who put it high up near the vault over the choir for safe-keeping; Stefano Dulcino reported seeing it in 1489178. On 6 October 1576 Borromeo conducted a procession with the Holy Nail to San Celso; thereafter it was set on the High Altar of the Duomo for 40 hours, then processed around all the quarters of the city where his crosses were179. Urbano Monti records other processions with it in 1576 from the Duomo to Sant’Ambrogio, Santa Maria alla Scala and San Nazaro; and the definitive arrangement whereby it was processed to San Sepolcro every 3 May of the year, the day of Helen’s inventio180. Borromeo deemed that the great relic, hidden so high up in the Duomo, had not been treated with the reverence that was its due. The Nail was kept up in the vault above the choir “accommodato entro una machina tutta luminosa, fatto con artificio mirabile, a guisa d’una risplendentissima nuvola; parendo proprio che fosse portato dal cielo per aria, con ministerio angelico” and during the processions it was housed in a cross in a silver case, gleaming with translucent crystals. At San Sepolcro, Borromeo preached to the people and told them the story of Heraclius, whose clothing and great crown had prevented him from carrying the Cross and also delivered a sermon about the Brazen Serpent as precursor of Christ on the Cross181. Bascapé, writing in 1592, includes the fascinating detail that for these processions Borromeo introduced the use of standards “not dissimilar” to those that Constantine made his soldiers carry during their marches – the labarum – as a demonstration of faith182. There is, however, a very curious aspect of Borromeo’s attitude to the crosses and to the Nail. He had announced his revival of the building of crosses in Milan in 1573 before the arrival of the plague; the mass of Catholic literature we have mentioned above from Chrysostom to Greutzer, including Borromeo’s own declara- tions and the interpretations of the meaning of the crosses under Federico Borromeo, all pointed to one inescapable fact; that the crosses in the street had assumed, after 1576, a real, not theoretical role as the supreme apotropaic symbol of Catholicism which saved Milan from the plague. But it is surprising to discover that in Borromeo’s mind the crosses were more or less displaced in favour of the Nail after the outbreak of the plague as the ultimate agent of its defeat; for, surprisingly, Borromeo himself apparently never once says, either in the Memoriale or in the pastoral letter on St Simplicianus, that the crosses drove away the plague. Instead, he always attributes that to the Nail and the relics of the saints; that is, Borromeo evidently started relying more heavily on relics, not images as the most potent weapons in the battle against the Demonio. Second; the relics of the saints. The most potent model for Borromeo’s reassertion of the cult of relics, their discovery, identification and replacement in either their original resting-places or transport to other churches was, of course, St Ambrose, bishop from 374-397183. Ambrose left the earliest surviving descriptions of a translatio which were, as we have seen, fundamental for the Catholic defence184. Ambrose recorded his discovery of the relics of Victor, Nabor and Felix in the Basilica naboriana (Santi Felice e Nabor) and those of Gervasius and Protasius on 17 June 386 (ill. 8, 9). The discovery of the latter was described by him in the celebrated letter to his sister, Marcellina; the bones were nearly all complete and full of blood; after prayer in the Basilica Faustae, he completed the translation on 19-20 June with a great crowd in attendance and deposited the relics in Sant’Ambrogio (the Basilica martyrum), just completed. Miracles occurred; many were liberated from the Devil and cured by touching the saints’ clothes; Severus, a blind man who touched the relics with a sudarium, recovered his sight; exorcisms took place near the bodies. From Borromeo’s perspective three points were particularly important; the whole ceremony took place over several days, with an elaborate procession; the event had the most unimpeachable witnesses imagineable – two Doctors of the Church, Ambrose and Augustine185; and this translatio was apparently the first ever carried out in the West186. Ambrose deposited the remains of St Satirus in the chapel of St Victor at Sant’Ambrogio (378), and those of St Nazarius (28 July 395) and of the Apostles, brought from Rome by Simplicianus (386), in the Basilica apostolorum (San Nazaro)187. And it was said by some that he placed the relics of St Dionysius, who died in exile in Armenia, in the Basilica patriarcharum, later San Dionigi. Ambrose also participated in the 95 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org inventio of the relics of Vitalis and Agricola in Bologna in 392, and took some of them to Florence and others back to Milan to the future basilica of San Vitale (ill. 10)188. Moreover, Sisinius, Martirius and Alexander, who had been sent by Ambrose to Bishop Vigilius at Trento to evangelise the Val di Non, were martyred on 29 maggio 397; Vigilius sent some of the relics back to Ambrose’s successor, Simplicianus, along with a letter, which survives; other relics remain in Turin189. They were put in Ambrose’s Basilica virginum, the church which later became San Simpliciano and where Simplicianus himself was subsequently buried190. Borromeo adhered in full to Ambrose’s practice of discovering, identifying and transporting local saints in a long series of processions beginning in 1571; none, it seems, involved a great series of temporary architectural structures or spectacular processions and all were eclipsed by that for St Simplicianus and other saints in 1582191. In the late 1580’s the church of San Simpliciano was in disrepair – “indecente”, “un fienile” and a “capanna”. The windows were very dirty, the altar maggiore was where the lettorino del choro is now and included a baldacchino of 4 columns “di marmo mischio o serpentino”; altars were attached to the piers of the church near the sanctuary under the cupola. Don Serafino Fontana, who was elected Abbot of San Simpliciano four times between 1577 and 1596, got rid of the scattered altars, repaired the chapels towards the monastery and cemetery and raised the pavement about 5 braccia (sic), following the instructions of the apostolic visitor, Girolamo Ragazzoni, in 1576. By 1582 Fontana, prompted, no doubt, by Carlo Borromeo, wanted to reconstruct the cappella maggiore and move the altar to where it now is, at the east below Bergognone’s great fresco. But because San Simpliciano (the Basilica virginum) had, like San Nazaro (the Basilica apostolorum), been built by Ambrose, he invited Borromeo to inspect the altar, where, after visits on 7 and 26 March 1581, they identified the relics of Sts Simplicianus, Benignus, Ampellius, Antoninus and Gerontius, and the three martyrs of the Val di Non – Sisinius, Martirius and Alexander – all of whom had been identified previously in 1517 when Leo X had substituted the Benedictines of Cluny for the Benedictines of Cassino at the church192. After much discussion they decided on 27-29 May 1582 as the days for the procession for St Simplicianus. An interesting decision; Antoninus, Ampellius, Benignus and Gerontius, all bishops and not saints, had no special day in common. St Simplicianus was by far the most important of the saints to be transported, but Borromeo could not start the celebrations on 15 August 1582, his feast-day, because it would have been too late in relation to the 6th Council of May 1582, with which he wanted to make the translatio coincide193; hence the ingenious decision to start the celebrations on the 27 May 1582, to be concluded on 29 May, the latter being the day of the martyrdom of the saints of the Val di Non, Alexander, Martirius and Sisinius194. A galaxy of important bishops were be present in the city for the 6th Council and were invited by Borromeo for the translation immediately afterwards195; on the 19 May 1582 he invited one of his closest associates, Agostino Valier, Bishop of Verona, as well as Gabriele Paleotti196. Paleotti’s presence was of particular interest; as Giussani pointed out, the symmetry across the centuries was striking; just as Ambrose had been to Bologna for the translatio of Vitalis and Agricola, so Paleotti would be in Milan for that of Simplicianus197. Seventeen abbots of the Cassinese monasteries were also present; all the representatives of the Gates of Milan, all grades of the labyrinthine hierarchy of the Duomo, all the heads of the Milanese churches and representatives of the Spanish government. But for Carlo Borromeo there was another fundamental matter at issue; in many Milanese churches, for example, the Duomo, Santa Maria alla Scala, Santa Maria delle Grazie, San Sebastiano and the chapel of the Ospedale maggiore, there had been attempts by the Spanish authorities to enter the inner choir and seat themselves or stand within the cancelli during mass – an act that was unthinkable for Carlo Borromeo, as it was for Federico 45 years later, because it violated the relationship between Church and State. On 24 settembre 1578, Borromeo sent a copy of a long letter, the Istruttione sopra il luogo de i magistrati di Milano mandata al Nuncio di Spagna to Cardinal Filippo Sega, Bishop of Piacenza. Borromeo underlines the fact that all the patristic and ancient sources, the acts of the councils of the Church, his own edicts and the instructions of Girolamo Ragazzoni, reinforce this separation. Having listed recent examples of the transgression, he continues: “Questi due anni passati, a San Simpliciano specialmente seben la prima volta, perché era il tempo della furia maggiore della peste, stettero i Senatori dentro, come che non volevano che il popolo se gli accostassero punto per il pericolo della contagione: et per questa causa pochi senatori convenevano: tuttavia ultimamente, deve esser circa un anno, stettero di fuori senza pur far parola di lamentarsi; né allhora vi era il Governatore […] Il Cardinale per questo et per vedere altrimenti irrimediabile l’ingresso di quegli altri laici della casa del Governatore et perchè la chiesa dove si haveva d’andare la mattina seguente era San Simpliciano, dove i cancelli sono molto più ristretti et vicini all’altare, in modo che, col 96 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org suoi Canonici, oltre che essi anche non potrebbono venire alli circoli se non difficilmente, et fra mezzo a quelle spade di laici, però si risolse, conforme a gli editti suoi et decreto del Visitatore apostolico, di fare assignare il luogo a tutti i laici fuori, etiam al Governatore ordinando, che per questo si servasse et si separasse dal popolo da una parte del sito fuori et si accommodasse con ogni lor sodisfattione”198. For Borromeo, then, the church of San Simpliciano had a double importance; as was the case with other Milanese churches, it was a source of invaluable relics, but it also included a presbytery that urgently needed restructuring in part to prevent the possibility of the lay authorities entering the sanctuary – a theme heavily stressed in the architecture of the procession as we shall see. 14. Girolamo Quadrio, plan and section of the west end of the Duomo in 1660 (after F. Repishti, R. Schofield, Architettura e Controriforma. I dibattiti per la facciata del Duomo di Milano 1582-1682, Milano 2004). baldacchino del Governatore, non vi è pur transito da quella parte, fuori delle colonne dell’altare, ai ministri ecclesiastici; né mai in quella chiesa vi è memoria che il Governatore sia stato dentro, non essendo anche venuta occasione simile di andarvi. Il Senato poi già l’ultima volta è stato di fuori in quella istessa chiesa, oltre che, se i cancelli fossero anco stati più larghi dello altare, in ogni caso per la presenza del Principe dentro, porta uno inconveniente che li Canonici et ordinarii della Cattedrale si fossero ritirati di sopra nel choro de i monaci; onde l’Arcivescovo in tal caso riman solo, separato dai suoi canonici, non solo di piano, ma anco con ferrata espressa et interiore per alcuni scalini; et pure il Vescovo in simile occasione deve sempre star congiunto con i VI. Carlo Borromeo’s Pastoral Letter on St Simplicianus Borromeo had issued decrees about relics at the 1st, 4th and 6th Provincial councils; but these stark documents address individual points of ecclesiastical law or procedure without much illustration of the relevant doctrinal or historical background. By contrast, we can turn to other, very rich material about Borromeo’s mentality. The plague of 1576-77 had, according to Borromeo, been cured above all by the intercession of saints and the potency of the greatest single relic in Milan, the Holy Nail. In his Memoriale of 1579, the point is repeated relentlessly. God had devastated the Milanese for their licentiousness and irreligious behaviour and the plague had been extinguished so quickly because of a return to good behaviour, but above all because of the intercession of Sts Ambrose, Calimerus, Celsus, Felix, Gervasius, Martirius, Nabor, Nazarius, Sebastianus, Sisinius, Vitalis, Victor, the Virgin Mary, and others, such as Marcellina, Ambrose’s sister, Christina, Pelagia and Tecla – all martyrs and saints buried in the great Ambrosian basilicas or in the Duomo or to whom churches had been built in Milan or who had other connections with the city199. While the Memoriale proclaimed the efficacy of the intervention of local saints, many other facets of the cult needed to be reasserted. Borromeo’s pastoral letter about St Simplicianus of 8 May 1582, taken with the procession on the 27-29 constitutes a powerful historical defence of the practice of the recognitio and translatio of relics using a mass of historical and visual material200. The letter may be summarised thus201. The immediate reason for the procession was the discovery of the remains of St Simplicianus. He was of the greatest importance in the history of the Milanese Church, as Ambrose and Augustine, who regarded him as their intellectual fa- 97 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 15. Specifications for the great arch in front of the Duomo in Milano (reconstruction by G. Ceriani Sebregondi). ther, tell us, and as the fathers at the Council of Carthage (397) confirm202. He gave the Milanese Church many of its hymns and much of its liturgy; he consecrated Gaudentius as Bishop of Vercelli and Honoratus as Bishop of Brescia; he helped Augustine meet Ambrose and free himself from Manicheanism; and in Rome, he converted Marius Victorinus, who had influenced Augustine203. Simplicianus also had a role in the Council of Carthage under Siricius and he, too, had revealed powers of intercession204. Ambrose and Augustine were, of course, Doctors of the Church; Ambrose baptised and trained Augustine, with the assistance of Simplicianus. Ambrose conquered Arianism in Lombardy and Augustine had defeated Manicheanism, Donatism and Pelagianism in Africa, and his teachings became the point of departure for the whole Church thereafter. The power of relics is easily demonstrated; St Basil states that they were the towers and fortifications of the city which held them205; Egypt was liberated from the snakes by the presence of the body of Jeremiah; Chrysostom tells us of the many miracles performed by the relics of Babylas206; and the great victory of the 300 Milanese over Barbarossa at the battle of Legnano on 29 May 1176, the date of the conclusion of the pre- sent translatio, occurred thanks to the intervention of Alexander, Martirius and Sisinius. Only recently, in 1577, the terrible plague was suppressed by our own relics, particularly the Holy Nail: “Non hai ancora capito Milano mia, […] che […] fu precisamente per mezzo del santo Chiodo della croce di Gesù Cristo che devotamente conservi e adori, che fosti ultimamente liberata dalla peste? […] Le sacre reliquie di cui faremo la traslazione, sono per noi un perenne ricordo della costante misericordia divina e dell’efficace intercessione dei santi […]. Sarà un trionfo per le vittorie che i santi, con la grazia divina, hanno riportato combattendo contro le forze ostili del male; un trionfo che la chiesa ha sempre usato festeggiare con pubblica gioiosità e religiosa magnificenza”. God always honoured relics; we must revere the relics of those that saved us, because that is to revere God; we therefore consecrate churches with relics. Relics justify the construction of great churches and demonstrate the triumph of Christianity over paganism – a point of extraordinary importance for the history of 16th century architecture. From the time of the Apostles we have celebrated relics and the rich have donated generously in their honour. Where now are the vast temples which Vespasian and Hadrian built at the acme of their power? – all destroyed without a trace while the great churches of the saints and their relics remain forever207. A splendid purple passage on this theme is presented by Lippomano in his Confirmatione of 1553, a book which Borromeo had almost certainly read since a copy was in his library: “Da la chiesa adunque Alessandrina, edificata e consecrata da San Marco in honor di San Pietro, si ha che è cosa antichissima intitulare le chiese in honore de santi, e ornarle superbissimamente. Onde San Giovan Chrysostomo parlando al popolo Antiocheno dice, ‘Mostrarmi tu il sepolchro di Alessandro, e dimmi il giorno che egli morì’208. Ma niuna cosa di costoro è insigne, tutto è ruinato, tutto è sterminato. Ma i sepolchri de servi di Christo sono chiari, posti ne la città regale, e i giorni loro ultimi, apportano grandissima allegrezza al mondo. Et la sepoltura di colui, né pure i suoi proprii la sanno, di questi, la fanno etiandio i barbari. Et i monumenti de servi del Crocifisso, sono più celebri che le sale de i Re, non per grandezza e bellezza di edificii (benché anche in queste eccedano) ma che è molto più, per le moltitudini de i visitanti. [… 181v] Theodoreto nell’ottavo libro de le Affettioni grecaniche […] dice, ‘Si veggono i tempii de Martyri splendidi, eccellenti per grandezza, variati con ogni sorte di ornamenti, e che spargono ad un certo modo di gran lunga splendore de la loro bellezza’209. Et Sant’Agostino nel xxxii libro de la Città di Dio, al cap. 10 dice, ‘Noi edifichiamo a i nostri 98 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 16. The Description of the great arch in front of the Duomo in Milano as built (reconstruction by G. Ceriani Sebregondi). martyri chiese, non come a Dei, ma come memorie a gli huomini morti, lo spirito de qual vive appreso a Dio, né ivi facciamo altari, né quali sacrifichiamo a i martyri, ma ad un Dio solo immoliamo il sacrificio de martyri, e il nostro’210. Nel libro dei Dogmi Ecclesiastici al cap. 77 si dice, ‘Credemo e confessiamo che si debbi andare con affetto pio e devotione a visitare le chiese chiamate con i nomi de santi, come a luoghi santi, applicati al culto divino’211. […] Ma che vo io adducendo dottrine de padri a questo proposito, quando le pietre, i muri, e le colonne, anchora che siano creature irrationali, parlano questa verità? Camina per lo mondo come ho fatto io, tu vederai per tutta la Italia, la Franza, la Germania, la Spagna, Portugallo, Anglia e Ongharia, tempii superbissimi, fatti chi 700, chi 800, chi l000 e chi più di 1100 e 1300 anni, lavorati con mirabili strutture, consecrati overo in honore de la beata Madre di Dio, o de li Apostoli, o di altri santi. In tanto che è pur troppo manifesta quella verità, che l’uso de le chiese, e l’ornato loro, anchora in honore di Santi, è antichissimo appresso i Christiani, e chi nega questo è ignorantissimo e si deve chiamare più tosto bestia, che huomo”212. Borromeo continues: heretics are thrown into confusion by pilgrimages to relics; enemies of the cult have been warned ever since the 2nd Council of Nicea, and by another eleven councils leading up to Trent, which reinforced what the Catholic Church has always believed; it was only Constantinople that did not always adhere to the cult of images and relics, whereas Antioch, Alessandria, Jerusalem and other metropolises did. The Church of Milan stretches unbroken from Barnabas, the first bishop, on to Nazarius, Gervasius and Protasius, up to Anatalon, Caius, Castrizianus, Calimerus and beyond. These bishops, martyrs and saints formed a bulwark against Heresy; Caius, Castrizianus and Calimerus opposed the persecutions of Maximianus, and Mona, the attacks of the Antonines; Maternus sent the bodies of Carpophorus and Fidelis to Como when the persecution of Maximianus broke out. The Emperor Constantius sided with the Arians and gathered the archbishops to Milan to annul Nicea I and condemn Athanasius but was heroically opposed by Dionysius of Milan and Eusebius of Vercelli. There were heroic women too: Valeria and Sophia at Milan, Savina at Lodi. Lombardy can boast of innumerable martyrs in Bergamo, Brescia (Faustinus and Giovita), Lodi, Milan, Novara, Tortona and Vercelli. Milanese saints held great councils and contributed to others; at the council of Vercelli the errors of Berengario were refuted213; at the Council of Milan (393), in the time of Ambrose, Giovinianus was condemned214; at another Milanese council held under Eustorgius, the Arians were defeated over the Incarnation (345 o 347); at Aquileia (September 381), Ambrose fought the Arianism of Palladius and Secondinianus215. Milanese saints have contributed to many other important councils; Protasius to that at Sardica (343344)216; Mansuetus to that at Constantinople (680-681)217; and Laurentius and Aemilianus from Vercelli went to Roman councils. Important declarations were sent by Ambrose to Pope Siricius218, by St Martinianus to the council at Ephesos (431)219, and by Mansuetus to that at Constantinople220. Further, translationes were a frequent and ancient practice that protected us from heresy “conforme alla tradizione e all’antico uso rituale”. Their function is to demonstrate our “doverosa venerazione ai santi”, to block “le mire dei nemici della chiesa”, and to reinvigorate the faith, just as they did in Ambrose’s time. “Infatti la presenza delle reliquie e la loro abbondanza è una sicura garanzia della misericordia divina e, insieme, un pegno della benevolenza di quelli santi dei quali custodiamo i resti mortali”. St Cornelius, Pope from 251 to 253, translated the bodies of Sts Peter and Paul221; and translations were common in Europe, Africa and Asia; for example, those of St Stephen, the first of all martyrs222, Ignatius, Babylas223, the Forty Martyrs224, and so on. 99 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org And what were these transportationes like? They were splendid, replies Borromeo, curiously citing no ancient example, but only that of St Gregory Nazianzen of 11 June 1580 held under Gregory XIII from Santa Maria in Campo Marzo to the Cappella Gregoriana in San Pietro’s in Rome225. But we have other examples closer to home; a Milanese archbishop, Pietro Oldrati, wrote to Charlemagne about the translation of the relics of Augustine226; Ambrose himself transported Nazarius and Celsus, Gervasius and Protasius, Vitalis and Agricola; therefore “Avremo la sensazione che questo uso sia per noi una vera tradizione, soprattutto se consideriamo che nei suoi scritti, S. Ambrogio ci ha lasciato quasi in eredità un autentico rituale per le traslazioni […] gli stessi Ariani che volevano catturare Ambrogio, visti i miracoli che scaturivano dalle reliquie, desistettero dall’insano proposito e si convertirono”. It is interesting to note that Borromeo specifically claims that Maternus, a Milanese bishop, had performed a translatio before Ambrose – that of St Victor (died 303) – presumably to push back the date of such translationes in Lombardy as early as possible, that is to before the death of Constantine in 337227. VII. The Procession for St Simplicianus and its Temporary Architecture Such are the contents of the most elaborate verbal defence of the cult of relics ever attempted by Carlo Borromeo; let us now examine the procession for St Simplicianus, the spectacular vehicle for the visualisation of a number of the themes proclaimed in the letter as well as of others concerned with the relationship of Church and State, Borromeo and the Spanish. The extremely detailed Description of all aspects of the procession survives in three copies; unfortunately there has been no complete transcription or systematic study of any of the copies or their sources so the following remarks must be regarded as provisional228. There are other eye-witness accounts by the diarists Urbano Monti and Giovanni Battista Casale229. The Description is remarkable for the minute attention it pays to architecture and for the fact that it supplies the principal measurements for each of the wooden structures, suggesting that the author had access in some way to information originating with the architect. The great procession went south from San Simpliciano and followed a roughly clockwise route to the Via Pontaccio, arriving at Brera, then along the Via Monte di Pietà, down Monte Napoleone, turning right down Via Pietro Verri, left at San Pietro all’Orto, along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, then along the Via Pattari behind the Camposanto to the Piazza Fontana and the Arcivescovado; then to the facade of the Duomo, entering via the men’s side (right) to the first steps of the choir, then turning to the women’s side; then on to the Piazza dei Mercanti and Cordusio, up the Via Broletto, Via Ponte Vetero and the Corso Garibaldi and back to San Simpliciano (ill. 11). They started at San Simpliciano; above the door of the church the archbishop-saints and martyrs of Milan being transported were listed; the event is dated to the pontificate of Gregory XIII in 1582, and those orchestrating the event, Carlo Borromeo and Serafino Fontana, are identified230. The lives of Ambrose, Augustine and Simplicianus were infinitely more important for the early history of the Milanese Church than those of Ampellius, Antoninus, Benignus, Gerontius. or Alexander, Martirius and Sisinius. Conversely, for the Comune of Milan, the three martyrs of the Val di Non enjoyed a glorious afterlife when they miraculously saved the city from Barbarossa at Legnano in 1176. Consequently while inscriptions about all the protagonists were located on arches all along the route of the procession, the temporary architecture in front of the Duomo concentrated exclusively on Ambrose, Simplicianus and Augustine (as well as Gervasius and Protasius, as we shall see), while on the Piazza dei Mercanti the focus was on Sisinius and his companions. A number of the inscriptions simply identify and praise the saints and martyrs in general terms231. In other cases the message became more specific when Borromeo wanted more to be said about them. Hence on the arch near the altar of the Padri Eremitani near the Porta Beatrice we find the scene of Simplicianus and Ambrose giving the hermit’s cloak and belt to Augustine (ill. 12)232. Elsewhere images and inscriptions recounted famous moments in Ambrose’s life; on the arch near the bridge over the Naviglio there were his deathbed declaration that Simplicianus should succeed him233, and his instruction of Augustine234; and on the arch near San Tommaso, past Cordusio, his virtues as an intercessor with God were again praised235. The fact that the route went past San Giorgio al Pozzo Bianco (destroyed) gave the organisers the opportunity to mention Alamanus Manclotius, 55th bishop of Milan, who founded the church236. Arriving at the centre of the city, a particularly elaborate wooden triumphal arch in front of the Arcivescovado (present Piazza Fontana) was reserved for Simplicianus and Ambrose. On one side, a great inscription narrated Simplicianus’ career as bishop of Milan, his travels around the world, the conversion of Marius Victorinus in Rome and especially his extrication of Augustine 100 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org from Manicheanism; also, his assistance of the fathers at the 5th Council of Carthage (397) and his consecration of Gaudentius as Bishop of Novara237. On the other side of the arch Ambrose was celebrated; in this case the absence of a narrative is particularly noticeable, probably because the principal episodes of his life upon which Borromeo wished to concentrate were illustrated elsewhere. The inscription sticks to generalities and Ambrose is broadly characterised as “disciplinae sanctae cultor, libertatis ecclesiae defensor, defensor vigilantissimus egentium viduarum pupillorum parens ac tutor” and generally as a model of doctrina, vigilantia, religionis pietas, iustitia, temperantia, fortitudo who illuminated the whole church238. We may also observe that under 1582, Urbano Monti recorded the fact that when the door of the Arcivescovado was being completed (ill. 13), Borromeo intended to set three bronze statues by Leone Leoni of Ambrose, Gervasius and Protasius on top of it, and that the statues had already been cast by the sculptor, who was working on them in his house. There seems to be no further information about this episode; yet it is tempting to imagine that the statues were intended to have been installed over the door to coincide with the procession in May; statues of Gervasius and Protasius were, strictly speaking, irrelevant to the content of the procession, but were included in the great multiple arch in front of the Duomo, as we shall soon see239. The portraits of a hundred and twenty one archbishops of Milan starting with Barnaba were arrayed on enormous pieces of cloth suspended across the facade of the Arcivescovado facing the Duomo. Finally, an inscription above the door of the Canonica narrated the fates that befell Sisinius, Martirius and Alexander240. In the later Cinquecento the Duomo lacked the three bays which were needed to arrive at the location of the intended facade which had been established as long ago as 1456; the nave and inner aisles remained at the line of the old facade of Santa Maria Maggiore, which was still in place, while the two outer aisles had advanced beyond that facade by one bay. A good idea of the situation emerges from the plan and transverse section made by Girolamo Quadrio in 1660 when the fabbrica were disputing how to join up the parts of the structure which already existed, demolish the older parts still standing (‘B’ in the drawing) and arrive at the great new facade already begun under Carlo Buzzi in the 1660’s, but which did not exist in the 1580’s. (ill. 14)241. It is important to note that the aisles of the Duomo consist of square bays 16 br. 16 br. (interaxial), and the nave of rectangular bays 32 br. 16 br. The most elaborate structure built for the procession was the spectacular concatenation of arches erected in front of the Duomo, a remarkable repository of Borromean iconology and architectural invention. The form that the building should take is described in an undated and unsigned list of specifications compiled within the fabbrica of the Duomo. The specifications seem to have been drawn up between an architect and the contractor or contractors who were to assemble the building rather than between the fabbrica and the architect. The architect is not named because his identity was automatically known to all – Pellegrino, architect of the fabbrica from 1567. The work had to be completed by 24 May 1582, just three days before the start of the procession itself on the 27. The specifications are as follows: “Capittoli li quali si hano a osservare nel apparato che si de’ fare inanti alle porte dil Dome, per la processione della translatione del corpo di S. Simpliciano. Prima va fatto inanti alla chiesa del Domo, in tutta la longhezza, che è tra risalto e risalto, nelli doi lochi dove si tiene la dottrina christiana, uno vestibolo, qual sarà longo circa br. 60, largo circa br. 15; et più va poi ornato conforme al restante li detti dui risalti in modo tale, che il principal ornato della faciata sarà longa circa br. 96, in la qual longheza si compartirà sette archi over portoni; quello di mezo, il qual rincontra la porta grande dil Domo, sarà di vodo di netto largo br. 12, alto fin alla somità del archo br. 24, con sopra il frontespitio conforme al dissegno. Et più va fatto dui altri archi minori, uno di qua et l’altro di là del detto archo grande, largo per ciascuno br. 6, alto br. 12. Et più va fatto dui altri archi per parte, le quale rincontreno le quatro porte minore del Duomo, larghe per ciascuna br. 8, alto br. 16. Et più va fatto li pilastri che divideno li detti archi; quatro serano longhi br. 4, grossi br. 2, et altri dui longhi br. 8, grossi br. 2, et altri dui longhi br. 6, grossi br. 2, con li risalti di dentro conforme al dissegno, con li suoi incontri dietro al muro della chiesa, et nel mezo delli dui pilastri presso al archo di mezo, et parimente li suoi rincontri, vi anderà piantato fortemente nel terreno con grosso legno per pilastro, alto circa br. 30, et alli altri pilastri seguenti, un’altro simil legno per pilastro alto br. 22, et alli altri dui pilastri seguenti dui legni per pilastro alti br. 22, et alli altri seguenti alli detti, quali sono in le cantonate, altri dui legni per pilastro, alti br. 22. Et più alli angoli di essi pilastri anderà cacciato fortemente nel terreno cantironi o legni quadri, tanti che arrivano alla detta alteza de br. 22, ali quali tutti sarà raccomandato li cerchi deli archi, si al di fuori, come di dentro; alli quali ancora sarà ricomandato li assi che anderàno 101 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 17. Cresconius being dragged from the altar (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). 18. Stilico’s soldiers being devoured by leopards in the amphitheatre (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). per il longo si sopra li detti archi, come alli capitelli delli pilastri, il qual asse serà dipinto a uso de architrave et farà ancora imposta all’ arco grande di mezo. Et più si porà, più alto tre braza di esso architrave, un’ altro asse pendente in fuori a uso di cornice, dipinto parimente a membro di cornice, il qual spatio de braza tre tra ditto architrave et cornice, anderà colocato li quadri dipinti de’ corpi santi; et il tutto s’intende tanto di dentro come di fuori, in esso vistibbulo, facendo parimente all’imposta de tutti li altri archi sopradetti le sue asse depinte come di sopra, et il tutto conforme al disegno. Et più anderà vestita la sopradetta ossatura di tutta l’ oppera de panni, fustani o tela, come al venerando capitolo piacerà di darli, si di dentro come di fuori, facendo vari ornamenti di bombagio atorno alle historie alli quadri de detti corpi santi, et altre cose conforme al disegno. Et più anderà fatto li capitelli delli pilastri de asse tagliati et poi dipinti, tanto di dentro come di fuori. Et più anderà fatto alli detti pilastri in alteza di br. 3 di asse et questo si fa a ciò la calca delle genti non guastino li panni. Et più anderà coperto il detto vistibbulo de panni a l’alteza de br. 22 , et quello incontro l’arco di mezo alto br. 30, facendovi ancora li pedestali sopra la deta cornice all’ incontro delli detti pilastri, a li quali serano ricomandato le corde che sustentarano li detti panni. Et più s’intenda che la detta impresa sia tutta, si di manifatura come di materia, ecetuato per le cose che abasso si dirà, a spese dello incantatore, qual sia ancora obligato pore in oppera tutte le imagine de santi et epitaphii, et fare a tutti li ornamenti di bambagia, come sarà ancora li altri ornamenti del medemo bambaso, ornando li triangoli delli archi con fioroni, et parimente del restante dell’ ornato de ligami de varie carte colorite et ori stridaroli, et como comporta simili ornamenti di feste; e tutt’ a satisfatione delli signori deputati di essa fabrica. Et più a la somità de tutti li archi vi anderà ornato de fistoni di ellera con vari frutti et ligamenti et oro stridarolo, et serano tre per archo […]. Et più, che la detta oppera habbi da esser compita per tutto il 24 magio 1582 […]. Capitolo delle imagine. Va fatto cento immagine de corpi santi, alti per ciascuna br. 2 , larghi onze 18 in circa, in carta real colorita de fini colori, come farà bisogno alla conveniencia di essi santi con dui tondi; in 102 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 19. Ambrose blocking Theodosius’s entry into the church (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). 20. Ambrose expelling Theodosius from the presbytery (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). l’uno anderà l’imagine di santo Ambrosio et in l’altro quella di santo Simpliciano, larghi br. 3 per ciascuno, con vari epitaphi et inscritioni. Et più anderà fatto due historie finte di mettallo; una con uno atto de’ più nobili dell’historie di santo Ambrosio, et l’altra di santo Simpliciano; et se altro si farà che non sia di sopra compreso, si pagherà solamente alla ratta dello incanto, et parimente se si facesse di meno”242. The reconstruction of the architecture from the list of specifications and the Description is not easy; and at this point the author would like to express his gratitude to Dr Giulia Sebregondi for the reconstructions and for allowing me to include here a number of her observations (ill. 15). According to the specifications, a vestibule immediately in front of the facade of Santa Maria maggiore filled in the space in front of the nave and inner aisles (60 br. x 15 br.), with another, much longer structure in front covering the whole breadth of the church (96 br. x 16 br.) and including seven arches. The arch in the centre was to be 24 br. high and 12 br. wide, with a tympanum above, “as the drawing shows”, now lost. Immediately to the left and right of the central arch were two other openings, 12 br. high and 6 br. wide; then two others to left and right, 16 br. high and 8 br. wide. The large timber boxes or, better, caissons supporting the building are then described; the specifications seem to say that caissons, 4 br. wide, were set between the apertures of the large central arch and the two smaller arches to left and right; other caissons, 8 br. wide, were to be positioned between the side arches, and were thus wide enough for two pilasters to be placed side by side in front of them. The caissons, which arrived at a height of 3 br., also formed a sort of skirting-board to prevent damage to the structure by the crowds; above the caissons, the exterior surface of the building was made of canvas. To support the structure, long wooden posts or masts, upon which the rest of the building of canvas and wood was suspended, were set in the ground; to the left and right of the central arch, and at the front and back, were 4 posts 30 br. high, which fixed the maximum height of the whole structure; other posts, 22 br. in height, fixed the maximum height of the rest of the structure to left and right of the central arch. The corners of the building were to be made of wooden boards taken up to a height of 22 br., thus differing from the rest where the caissons only arrived at 3 br.; here again the idea seems to 103 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 21. Ambrose and the Necromancer (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). 22. Theodosius penitent (Milano, Duomo, choir of the Capitolo maggiore. After Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit.). have been to make the building as rigid as possible. All the architectural detailing – the capitals, the semicircles of the arches, the architrave, frieze and cornice – had to be suspended on these masts and their cross-beams. Presumably the whole structure – made rigid by the caissons and masts which formed its skeleton – was empty inside but made more stable by being secured to the walls of the outer aisles. Between the architrave and the cornice, the frieze, 3 br. high, was to accommodate portraits of 100 corpi santi, each 2 br. high and 18 once wide and made of coloured paper; these portraits extended around the sides of the building, to judge by their total width of some 150 br.; below the architrave were painted wooden capitals. The structure was to be roofed in cloth, that is, to a height of 22 br. at the sides, and to a height of 30 br. over the great arch. Above the cornice there was to be a series of acroteria or pedestals on axis with the pilasters to which ropes could be tied to secure the cloth roofs. The whole structure was to be made of wood and ‘bambagia/bambaso’, the spandrels decorated with flowers and the rest with painted paper and ‘ori stridaroli’; at the top of the arches were to be garlands of ivy and fruit and ‘ligamenti et oro stridarolo’. We hear of two tondi, one with Ambrose, the other with Simplicianus, 3 br. high each, with appropriate inscriptions, presumably to be placed in the tympanum over the central door. There were also to be two fictive bronze paintings with notable episodes from the life of St Ambrose and St Simplicianus above the doors or apertures to left and right of the central arch; maybe they had not yet decided what the subject matter should be; they had certainly not decided the shape of the paintings because, as we shall see, the side apertures were altered during the construction of the building. The Description of the architecture as built runs thus: “In questo piano era fabricato un theatro lontano dalla facciata della chiesa br. xvi, longo br. 94, alto br. xxii et largo br. xvi con iiii (sic. iii) archi per parte, il vano dei quali era largo br. viii et alto br. l6, i pilastri dell’archi erano grossi br. ii, a ciascuno dei quali era appoggiato una colonna d’ordine ionico che risultava fuori iiii ontie, ’l spatio tra la colonna et il profilo dil pilastro, che per proprio nome si chiama membretto, era d’ontie xi; i pilastri erano piantati in terra senza alcuno pidestallo, i quali erano vestiti di panni di diversi colori, cioè tutti li risalti di panno turchi- 104 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org no, tutti li membretti di panno verde et le grossezze delli pilastri di panno bianco; tra li quattro archi era la porta triumfale con una porta quadra per parte, il netto della porta principale era largo br. xiii et alto br. xxvi, et dall’arco di questa porta sin’alla sommità del frontespicio erano br. x di modo che era tutta l’altezza di questa porta br. xxxvi; nell’angolo del frontespicio era posta in forma circolare una pittura, c’havea dentro Iddio padre col mondo in mano sotto’l cornisone del frontespicio; nell’angolo a man destra era depinto S. Ambrosio, a man sinistra S. Simpliciano; dall’arco di questa porta pendeva quest’epitafio ornato con festoni, con li quali tutte le porte triumfali erano ornate, et li archi medemamente. [… etc.]243. Le porte laterali quadre haveano ’l netto largo br. 4 1/2 e alto ix; sopra la porta a man destra era l’historia quando S. Ambrosio privò dell’ingresso della chiesa Theodosio imperatore per li fraudolenti huomicidii commessi a Salonici, con questo epitafio; S. AMBROSIVS THEODOSIVM IMPERATOREM QVEM OB CAEDEM TESSALONICAE FACTAM ECCLESIAE ADITV PROHIBVIT, PVBLICE POENITENTEM IN CONSPECTV POPULI COMMVNIONI RESTITVIT. Sopra la porta a man sinistra era l’historia quando S. Simpliciano converti Vittorino oratore disputando in Roma con quest’epitafio; S. SIMPLICIANVS VICTORINVM NOBILEM RHETOREM DISCIPLINIS LIBERALIBVS ERVDITISSIMVM APVD ROMANOS AVTHORITATE FLORENTEM AB IMPIA IDOLORVM SVPERSTITIONE AD VERAM CHRISTI FIDEM CONVERTIT244. Questi duoi quadri con li epitafii erano d’altezza br. vii e poco più tanto che ascendevano alla medema altezza dell’archi nella cui maniera erano vestite le porte; quest’ornamento del theatro era verso la piazza, et era parimenti l’istesso interiormente. Alla porta triumfale rispondeva la porta della chiesa, la quale veniva a congiongersi col theatro; alle porte laterali quadre rispondevano due altre porte con simile maniera, alli iiii [sic] archi doveano rispondere altri iiii [sic] archi, ma perchè questa chiesa è imperfetta per alcune muraglie che sovravanzano ’l muro posticcio, il quale fa facciata alla chiesa, prohibivano per il longo un arco per parte, onde haveano li periti maestri fatto caminare questo arco con artificio, che piegava et andava a congiongersi con li archi della piazza. Sovra quest’archi et porte laterali, caminava ’l suo architrave largo ontie xiii et il freggio largo br. 2 ontie ii, et il cornisone de ontie xv, il quale con l’architrave era depinto a chiaro et oscuro, et il freggio era di panno cremisino, nel quale erano compartito cento quadri di pittura che raffiguravano parte delli santi arcivescovi di Milano et parte delli santi cui corpi la città di Milano possiede”. The long rectangular building as constructed stood 16 br. away from the facade of the Duomo and was 94 br. long, 22 br. high and 16 br. deep245; the great structure comprised 4 (sic; 3) arches on either side, 16 br. high and 8 br. wide, and the pilasters in front were 2 br. wide and 3 oncie deep. The pilasters stood on the ground without pedestals, but presumably with bases; these pilasters must have been attached to the fronts of the wooden caissons mentioned in the specifications above. Then, to our surprise, we learn that in front of each pilaster, at a distance of 9 oncie, stood an ionic column – not mentioned in the list of specifications246. The central arch, 26 br. high by 13 br. wide, was flanked by small rectangular doors on either side; the distance from the apex of the arch to the top of the tympanum was 10 br., so that the total height of the arch plus tympanum was 36 br.. In the apex of the tympanum was a tondo with God the Father with the world in his hand; at the right, St Ambrose, and at the left, St Simplicianus. Suspended from the central arch was the very long inscription naming the archbishops and martyrs of Milan. The small rectangular doors at the left and right of the central arch were 9 by 4 1/2 br.; above the door at the right, paintings, 7 br. high, of Ambrose and the penitent Theodosius, and at the left, Simplicianus converting Victorinus. The small doors, 9 br. high, plus the paintings above, 7 br. high, thus reached the height of 16 br., the height of the other side-arches. The architrave of the structure was 13 oncie high, the frieze 2 br., 2 oncie high, and the cornice 15 oncie, producing an entablature of 54 once or 4 1/2 br. in height. The architrave was painted in chiaroscuro, the frieze was made of “panno cremisino”, and in the frieze were paintings depicting archbishops and saints of the city. Comparing the specifications with the Description, one may observe the following divergences which Dr Sebregondi has incorporated in her reconstruction (ill. 16). Some of them are so small that they probably do not reflect real differences, or perhaps they result from different readings of the numbers on a scale-drawing along with a set of specifications made by Pellegrino. In any case, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that the prior of San Simpliciano, Ludovico Chizzuola, or the other two anonymous authors who produced copies of the Description would have been interested enough to measure all the buildings personally. Other divergences are more important and point to changes of plan during the execution of the structure. The divergences between the specifications and the Description are as follows; (i) the depth of the vestibule changes from 15 to 16 braccia; (ii) the breadth of the facade diminishes from 96 br. 105 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org to 94 br.; (iii) the breadth and height of the central arch (24 br. _ 12 br. to 26 br. by 13 br.) are increased and by the height of the tympanum (30 br. to 36 br.); (iv) the minor lateral arches are replaced by rectangular apertures because Pellegrino or the authorities eventually decided that the large canvases with Ambrose (at right) and Simpliciano to be put above them should be rectangular. One wonders whether in fact these apertures were ever intended to be used as doorways; they do not correspond to any of the Duomo’s real entrances, which the central arch and side arches do; and Monti says that below the paintings were life-size ‘effigie’ of Sts Gervasius and Protasius; (v) ionic columns were now added in front of the pilasters; (vi) the height of the frieze was reduced from 3 br. to 2 br., 2. onc. Two hypotheses are presented in the reconstruction of the building described in the Description; at the left, the columns and entablature are both salient; at the right the entablature is continuous; the latter perhaps is slightly more attractive given that there were 100 portraits of saints in the frieze and presumably a continuous frieze would have made them more easily seen. Urbano Monti’s contemporary account is substantially in agreement with the Description, except that he reports that the tondo in the tympanum was provided with Christ with the stigmata not God holding the globe. Monti also says that the large painting at the left of the main arch showed Ambrose baptising Augustine in the presence of Simplicianus, not Simplicianus converting Victorinus; Monti was wrong as the inscription, quoted in the Description, shows. Finally, Monti reports that in the rectangular apertures at ground level to left and right of the arch were “l’effigie al naturale di grandezza uno per parte de i gloriosi santi Gervasio et Protasio”247. The last we ever hear of the wonderful architecture built for the procession of St Simplicianus is again from Monti, who tells us that parts of it were used two days later, on 31 May 1582, for the translatio of St Giovanni Bono which proceded from the little church of San Michele subtus Domo through the Contrada dei Barettieri, the Contrada degli Orefici, Cordusio, then back to the Duomo, where the remains were temporarily housed under the altar of San Michele in the right transept, to which Borromeo had transported the titolo of San Michele shortly before248. VIII. Iconography and Politics, Sources and Authors What then of the iconography of the procession? The lengthy inscription suspended from the apex of the central arch presented a list of 32 Milanese bishops from Barnabas to Galdino and of eleven Milanese martyrs along with a declaration that this monument to piety has been set up in recognition of divine benefits249; the inscription, plus the friezes on the great multiple arch and on the facade of the Arcivescovado demonstrated the fact that the archbishops and martyrs of Milan go back in an interrupted sequence to the apostle Barnabas at the very beginnings of the Church in the West, as indicated in the pastoral letter about St Simplicianus. The jurisdictional fights between Borromeo and the Spanish are legendary; and it is not surprising that the arch in front of the Duomo illustrated an episode of fundamental importance for the relationship between Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius and therefore of that between Borromeo and the Spanish250. The large rectangular painting (7 br. high, 4 1/2 br. wide) at the right of the main arch showed Ambrose allowing the Emperor back into the church to take mass having repented of the massacre at Thessalonica in 390 which had caused Ambrose to bar him from the church – a celebrated episode reported by Ambrose himself, and then very widely by Paulinus and the historians251. As we shall see, several elements of the story were included by Borromeo in the choir of the Duomo in reliefs made by Virgilio del Conte and Rizzardo Taurini after drawings by Pellegrino252. This famous episode, and others like it from the life of Ambrose, revolving around the absolute division of ecclesiastical from lay authority, were also used by Carlo in a eulogy of Ambrose incorporated in his sermon of 7 December 1567 held in the Duomo253. In the sermon, as in the scenes in the choir, Borromeo relies mainly on Paulinus for his account of celebrated incidents from the life of Ambrose with some additions from the Anonimous Carolingian Vita and Theodoretus; for example, the moment when, in order to defend the principal of ecclesiastical sanctuary, Ambrose and the clergy formed a protective circle around the fugitive, Cresconius, to prevent Stilico’s soldiers from arresting him; the soldiers, who were Arians, did succeed in arresting him, but later, on their return to the amphitheatre, were devoured by leopards (ill. 17, 18)254; his refusal to buckle before the endless plots of the Arian empress, Iustina255; his exclusion of Theodosius from the church and from 256 the cancelli (ill. 19, 20) ; and finally his refusal to agree that a synagogue and temple of the Valentiniani which had been burnt down at Callinikos on the Euphrates, should be replaced257. The sanctity of the upper choir and the story of Theodosius also formed one of the principle themes of Federico Borromeo’s well-documented De presbyterio of 1624258. The door of the Arcivescovado was to have included bronze statues of Ambrose, Gervasius and Protasius; and life-size statues of the latter two appeared in the apertures to left and right of 106 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 23. Pellegrino’s project for the facade of the Duomo in Milano (copy after Repishti, Schofield, Architettura e Controriforma…, cit.). the central arch in front of the Duomo. Strictly speaking they were interlopers who were not directly relevant to the relics being transported but whose presence was justified by their great importance in the history of western translationes, as we have seen. The importance of the power of the relics of Sisinius, Alexander and Martirius to Milanese communal history was fully explored on the spectacular arches set up at the entrance of the Broletto facing the Duomo and the exit facing Cordusio. On these arches the story of the ferocious defence of the city against Federico Barbarossa at Legnano on 29 May 1176 was recounted with inscriptions and fictive bronze paintings narrating the role of the Martyrs259. The author of the Description, and presumably the organisers of the decorations at this point, relied on Bossi, Corio, Merula and Sigonio260. During the battle, the Milanese forces were in desperate condition until three doves suddenly flew from the altar in San Simpliciano, where the remains of the three saints rested, and landed on the Milanese waggon. The waggon, an invention of archbishop Erimbertus, “71st (sic) Bishop of Milan circa 120AD”, was pulled by four pairs of oxen and transported an altar with a mast bearing a cross and flag. A priest accompanied the waggon, and performed masses for the soldiers. The arches included scenes of the moment when the Milanese take heart because of the miracle, killing Barbarossa’s horse under him and seizing his standard, an eagle; included were images of Sts Sisinius, Gerontius and Martirius, Alexander, Antonius and Ampellius261. That Milan had been an age-old centre of the Faith could be demonstrated by the writings of Ambrose and Augustine262; but the strength of the tradition before and after Ambrose also had to be demonstrated, and this depended in part on the capacity of Borromeo and his assistants, particularly the understudied Pietro Galesini, to document the fact that Milan was the origin of a vast series of martyrs and saints, relics and miracles, all of which contributed in important ways to the development of Christianity. Borromeo had decreed that the bishops of the diocese should investigate the histories of their own churches and should create books based on the work of “docti et pii viri” using “probati auctores” and “certi scripti et traditiones”; the entrance halls of their palaces should include a picture-gallery of the bishops’ distinguished predecessors263. Pietro Galesini, a Latin and Greek scholar, was Borromeo’s most important historical and liturgical expert in the 1560’s and 1570’s, along with Carlo Bascapé, Silvio Antoniano and, in Rome, Guglielmo Sirleto. By 1570 Borromeo had instructed Galesini to explore the sources with which to compile the Breviarium and the history of the archbishops of Milan, a project which Paleotti wished to undertake for Bologna as well. Francesco Castelli joined Galesini in the work in 1572; Silvio Antoniano was invited to assist in 1573, but declined declaring that he did not have sufficient books and that Galesini was perfectly suited to the work “noster ille Adamantius et librorum Lelluo”264. Sirleto provided sporadic assistance during the 1570’s and 1580’s, and his investigations were published in 1584265. In the meantime, in 1573 (?) Borromeo had founded the Congregatio de vitis archiepiscoporum, which was headed by Galesini and included Antoniello Arcimboldi, Carlo Bascapé and Giovanni Francesco Besozzi, author of the Historia pontificale di Milano of 1596, work temporarily interrupted by Borromeo’s death in 1584266. The result of Galesini’s labours in this sphere were his Martyrologium of 1578, the Breviarium ambrosianum of 1582 and the Tabula archiepiscoporum with brief, dense biographies of the archbishops of Milan267. These works, along with the procession for St Simplicianus, marked the high water mark of Borromeo’s historical investiga- 107 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org tions intended to buttress, with the best sources available, the vast antiquity and authenticity of the Milanese Church and its practices. And given the great knowledge of the early history of the Milanese Church demonstrated by Borromeo’s pastoral letter on St Simplicianus, it seems reasonable to assume that at least the very detailed raw information that it contains came from Galesini. The inscriptions and their sources used for the Simplicianus procession have yet to be examined in detail, and there are a number of divergences from the information presented in Galesini’s Tabula and his other works; yet it remains very likely that Galesini was their author. Galesini had been instructed to oversee the Simplicianus procession, according to the Description; “et fu datto la cura a monsignor Galesino di descrivere il modo col quale si dovessero trasportare, et lo descrisse così bene, che niente più vi si poteva aggiungere”. Giovanni Paolo Caimi, becoming nervous that the day of the celebrations was so close, wrote to Borromeo on 24 April 1582, speaking of the ‘apparato’ for the procession and the ‘fattura de i santi’, and attributing the planning to Borromeo. He also reported that Galesini has been working hard on gathering information about the lives of the archbishops, but that since time was very short, he pleaded with Carlo to persuade Galesini to send him the material or better, to come back to Milan from Rome, so that the images could be agreed upon once they had established which sources to use268. In 1582 Pellegrino was an extraordinarily busy man as well; not only was he involved in the frantic preparations for the St Simplicianus extravaganza, designing the architecture and presumably making sketches for many of the paintings, or even executing some of them himself; but he was also engaged in an equally important and closely related task. The enormous project of rebuilding the choir of the Duomo had been begun in 1567 and involved Pellegrino in making a host of drawings for the reliefs with scenes from the life of St Ambrose and images of the martyr-saints for the stalls of the Capitolo Maggiore, and of the saintarchbishops for the Capitolo minore269. The procedure was that Pellegrino provided drawings, another master made a model in clay or terracotta which was then carved in wood by the same master or another270. At the moment the documentation for the reliefs in the stalls is far from complete and many remain undated; yet it is fascinating to observe that in December 1582 there was a burst of payments to the masters Rizzardo Taurini and Virgilio del Conte for having completed reliefs from Pellegrino’s drawings of which the subject matter was intimately connected with the St Simplicianus procession. The scenes carved and paid for on 31 december 1582 include St Ambrose and the Necromancer (ill. 21; Taurini); The Attempted Murder of Ambrose (Taurini); The translatio of Gervasius and Protasius (Taurini); The Baptism of Augustine, Deodatus and Alipius (Taurini) and Ambrose preaching (Taurini). In these cases the models from Pellegrino’s drawings were presumably made in 1582 or earlier. But there is also a run of payments for models made by Francesco Brambilla from Pellegrino’s designs which were then carved by Virgilio da Conte; all except one of these models was paid for on 30 May 1582, and they include many scenes involving Ambrose and Theodosius; Ambrose preaches to Theodosius; Ambrose blocking Theodosius’s entry into the church (ill. 19); Theodosius’s ambassador asks Ambrose for forgiveness; Theodosius asks for Absolution; Theodosius signs the edict given to him by Ambrose; Ambrose expels Theodosius from the presbytery (ill. 20); finally the model for Theodosius penitent was ready by December 1592 (ill. 22). Models or completed reliefs which are relevant to the procession and propaganda for Simplicianus but which are not dateable to 1582 are few. The following important scenes are not documented: The Revelation of Protasius and Gervasius and The inventio of Gervasius and Protasius. But other scenes of immediate relevance for the Simpliciano procession were completed later; in 1591 Taurini had completed the reliefs of the Deposition of the Relics of Gervasius and Protasius; Ambrose putting the Relics of Agricola and Vitalis on the altar and Ambrose exhuming the head of St Nazarius. The model by Brambilla of the scenes of Cresconius and Stilico’s soldiers being devoured by Leopards had been payed for by 20 May 1591. But the drawings and models for these reliefs may have been made long before, even as early as 1582. Several examples demonstrate that there were sometimes long gaps between the making of a model and the completion of a relief; the model by Brambilla of Theodosius penitent of 29 December 1582 was converted into a relief by Taurini only in 1591; and his model of Ambrose blocking Theodosius’s entry into the church completed by 30 May 1582 was turned into a relief first by Taurini in 1583, then completed by Virgilio da Conte in 1596. In conclusion; we have a run of 5 reliefs finished before December 1582; 6 models for reliefs completed in May and December 1592; and 6 other relevant scenes which may, one suspects, have been designed around the same time – a minimum, that is, of 13 cartoni already finished by Pellegrino before the end of 1582 and a maximum of 19. One wonders whether this burst of activity on a long series of scenes of immediate 108 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 24. Milano, San Vittore al Corpo, unfinished facade (photo R. Schofield). relevance to the great St Simplicianus procession was triggered by Borromeo’s decision, taken presumably in late March 1581, to translate St Simplicianus with as much powerful postridentine propaganda as possible to coincide with the 6th Council of May 1582 when a mass of ecclesiastical dignitaries would be present and presumably able to study the cartoni, the models and some of the completed scenes. The choice of scenes, however, would always have been the same, since the source followed from the beginning for the series illustrating Ambrose’s life was Paulinus’s Vita with additions here and there from the Carolingian Vita271. The impresario of the architecture of the great arch in front of the Duomo was no doubt Pellegrino; whether he was responsible for the design of the rest of the arches – evidently massproduced – is unknown, but it seems likely enough. Certainly he had been heavily involved in other such phantasmagorias. For the 6 September 1581 he had designed the stupendous catafalque set up in the Duomo for the funeral of Queen Anna, wife of Philip II of Spain, and had also printed an elaborate description of the proceedings272. Urbano Monti’s very detailed account of the catafalque, its decoration and crests, has never been published, but it starts thus: “Sotto la cuba o sia tiburio dil domo era il gran catafalco circondato da otto piramide alte braza trenta doi, computando le croce poste nella cima d’esse, piantate sopra una balla adorata, alle quale croce erano apese vintiquatro lampade per caduna, acese, che facevano parer dette croce circondate da tante stelle, et al ingiù erano sopra dette piramide ben acomodati vintiquatro candeleri di legno inchiodati alli cantoni che sostenevano vintiquatro torchie di modo che erano in tutto sopra dette piramide nonanta- sei torchie, quale piramide erano ornate de arme imperiale o reale et de motti et imprese particolare di quelli a cui erano dedicate per le littere come segue, poste sopra li pedestalli de dette piramide alti braza otto da terra, sopra la prima de quale entrando sopra il catafalco da man dritta erano littere che dicevano”. There follows a long description, with illustrations, of the imprese. The account concludes as follows: “Lo autore del catafalco fu messer Pelegrino allora ingeniero sopra la fabrica del Domo, delli epitaffi, dei quadri, dei motti, et de i versi furno oltramontani, cioè spagnoli, per tanto non si maravigli il lettore se non sono così tersi et di bona lingua latina, come vorebbero, et habbino per escusata quella natione, quale non havendo quel naturale et quella vera eloquenza che naturalmente hanno li italliani, romana, non può esser che non faciano qualche disparere a l’ortografia nostra, detti errori possono esser cagionati dala frezza del comporli stando che il tempo fu breve”273. In the case of the architecture of the extended arch in front of the Duomo of 1582, the details of the order are, of course, uncertain. Two possibilities present themselves; a facade comprising salient ionic columns (if the Description is to be believed on the type of order) without pedestals supporting either a salient or a continuous entablature. The fundamental idea is spectacular and reemerged, evidently in the 1590’s, in Pellegrino’s stupendous projects for the real facade of the Duomo for which he proposed salient corinthian columns and salient entablatures (ill. 23)274. Had the entablatures used for the temporary architecture of 1582 been salient, then we can be sure that Pellegrino’s point of departure was the series of gigantic corinthian columns with salient entablatures of Michelangelo’s Santa Maria degli Angeli. If the entablature was not salient, but continuous, the same probably applies. Such a portico was started but never finished at San Vittore (ill. 24), although there Pellegrino proposed to use corinthian capitals and Pantheon-type bases with double-astragals and the depth of the portico would have been greater than that of the temporary architecture at the Duomo; unfortunately it is not entirely clear either what form the tympanum at San Vittore would have taken. The documents at hand do not permit us to say whether the design for the facade of San Vittore preceded the wooden architecture in front of the Duomo of 1582; but it is fascinating to see Pellegrino experimenting in wood with a spectacular idea – enormous antique salient columns – which he was able to play with on two other occasions: at San Vittore and in the gigantic projects for the real facade of the Duomo275. 109 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org IX. Conclusion In the pastoral letter for St Simplicianus, in some of the scenes in the stalls of the Capitolo maggiore of the Duomo and in the great procession with its many arches, paintings, statues and inscriptions, Borromeo lays out in great detail a number of the essential points of the Catholic assertion of the cult of relics, putting the stress where possible on Milanese precedents: (i) the antiquity, and therefore indisputable authenticity of such relics and their translationes, though he avoids the biblical examples fought over by other polemicists; (ii) the apotropaic powers of relics, which had saved Milan at least twice (Legnano 1176, plague 1576-77), and which derive from the fact that the saints intercede on our behalf; (iii) the presence of relics which both encourages wealthy patrons to provide funds and justifies the construction of splendid chapels and churches, thereby demonstrating the triumph of Christianity over paganism – a classic Catholic Cinquecento topos ferociously contested by Protestants; (iv) heretics have been warned by the great Councils from Nicea II to Trent about the power of images and relics; (v) the contributions of Milanese bishops and saints to the reinforcement of dogma, against the Arians in particular, but on many other occasions, as is shown by their contributions to important ancient councils; (vi) the importance of St Am- brose for the cult of saints and their translationes in Borromean Milan and his continuing relevance to the struggles between States and the Church; (vii) the indisputable distinction and authority of the protagonists of Milan’s early Christian period – the city could boast not only Ambrose, his mentor Simplicianus, his protegé Augustine, but Protasius and Gervasius and many others. That Borromeo’s doctrinal urban activities and his wide historical investigations were local manifestations of great ideological battles is clear. We close with a precious indication of just how seriously the Spanish took his activities in this respect. Ayamonte, the Spanish Governor, wrote a letter to Philip II in 1576, but which he sent on 3 April 1578. Ayamonte reported that Borromeo was positively dangerous because he understood the real needs of the populace, who have been made poor by the continual passage of Spanish troops on their way to Flanders; but Borromeo is also an attentive reader of the mediaeval histories of Milan, not particularly because he likes to study but because he wants to reanimate the tradition of great archbishops of Milan as defenders, political and civil, of their people; Ayamonte is not at all worried about a possible rapprochement of Borromeo and the French because he is preoccupied with Milan alone. But we should remember that all the Scuole di Dottrina Cristiana that he has created have given Borromeo what is in effect, his own private army276. 110 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org APPENDIX Ambrogio Mazenta’s Horarium. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cod. Q 63 sup.: a handwritten manuscript with two drawings; presumably autograph. The drawings are on fols. 7 (ill. 6) and 8 (ill. 7). /1r/ M. Reverendi patris Ambrosii Mazentae (in a different hand); De cava columna, manalia, horario et labaro sanctissimae crucis. /2r/ De cava columna, manali, horario et labaro sanctissimae crucis. Multa cum urbis commodo et splendore haberi possunt ab erectione cavatae columnae, per quam coeclidis scalis, claviculata tortilique structura iumenta, homines, acqua et omnia quamvis ponderosa possint ascendere; si enim [inserted above the line] in frequentioribus compitis, et quadriviis, ut Mediolani S. Karolus in usum induxitb, columna similis excitetur, in triumphale tropheum sanctissimae crucis; et ut tamquam in augustali labaro Christus adoretur et tutior sit urbs; apudque cives iugis sit memoria Redemptionis humanae, moles attolletur supra reliquas Urbis, ex unico lapide columnas excisas; et ascensio facilis et maior praebebit despectus iucundissimos platearum, domorum, hortorum, templorum intra et extra latissima urbis amplissimae pomeria. Forma et fabrica facilior, minori dispendio, ad maiorem elegantiam deducetur. Non enim constabit ex unico unius coloris lapide ingentis oneris, et impossibilis vectionis, sive manibus vehatur, sive trocleis trahatur, sed ex parvis lapidibus, macularum et colorum varietate conspicuis, per strias diversas spirulatim et capreolatim ascendentes ad altitudinem quam quisque voluerit sine ruvinae periculo; quae magis timenda in unico ingenti lapide, saepissime irreparabiliter scisso, vel vitio naturae vel frigoris et caloris intemperie atque a parvissimo /2v/ caprifici semine ab ave in rimula solidissimae petrae iniecto; facilius etiam columnae, si ex pluribus lapidibus extruantur, sartiuntur exesae temporis dente voracissimo, uti videre licet Romae in caelatis et historialibus columnis Traianis et Antonianis a Sixto V pontifice maximo post an[num] MCCC [sic] facillime instauratis. Reddet etiam cavitas columnae et asscansio [sic] facilis commodioresc, et magis varios apparatus et ornatus in diebus sanctissimae cruci dicatis, quando solemniori pompa, cum musicis, luminibus et ignibus frequentissimi conventus ad compita Urbis habentur. 2. Efficietur haec eadem columna sanctissima cruci supposita sublime castellum acquarum, fonsque iugiter manans, et altissime saliens, non sine allusione praeclarissima ad crucem Christi, et Mosis virgulam, quarum divina virtute siccissimae petrae in manales lapides utilissime commutantur et hodie, dum obstinati peccatores conversuntur. Mediolani mira omnium rerum copia; civitas ipsa ab acquarum abundantia nomen habet, ut S. Ambrosius asserit; sed propter continuas camporum planities desunt salientes, licet ubique scaturigines sint. Artis beneficio quod natura negavit habebimus aquas scilicet in summa terrae ac aedium, si extruendo columnam cavam, fundamenta eius adeo excavata infossaque sint, ut indeficientes scatebrae obvientur; quae austoria machina per tubulas ad caput et ad summas partes columnae /3r/ cogantur, non manibus hominum, quod laboriosum esset opus, minimeque continuum, sed ponderibus demissis per cavitatem columnae quorum gravitate, funis tympano circumvoluta, vel cathena mollis aenea, ne sicci, et humidi varietate varietur temperatio motus, volvat rotam denticula- tam, et hisce denticulis duas ligulas motionibus contrariis agitet; ita, ut ligulae aquam cogant in demerso aeneo dolio rotondo inclusam ascendere per tubulos binos fixos in tabula dolium dividente in duas partes aequales. Sine ligularum agitatione ad sumam columnae partem etiam impellitur aqua, sola ponderum gravitate, si per cava fundamenta demittantur in binos puteos profundissime defossos, exequata puteorum ac ponderum rotunditate pelliculis, et spongiis. Mutua demissione ponderum cogetur aqua unius putei per temperatas fistulas ab ima parte usque ad caput columnae; dum vero unus evacuatur, alter replebitur, et hoc modo per vices ascendentibus et descendentibus ponderibus, putei iuges per sublimitatem columnae largissime effundentur; et corivatis aquis descendentibus per spirulatas strias, sepius eadem aqua in speciem fluminis longissimi ostendetur; metamque sudantem ab antiquis in foro romano ostentatam non sine miraculo renovabit; si vero bina pondera eodem tempore /3v/ sine temperamento laxata, dimissaque fuerint, maxima vi trudentur aquae per tubulos apertos ad hunc finem, et cataclysmus, diluvium, inundatio, iris, arcus caelestis, ut in maximis pluviis, cum bumbis, fragoribus et tonitruis, horariis et ad certum tempus ostendentur. Haec et alia similia erunt civibus et advenis iucundissima; sed utilior erit elatae usus aquae officinis et machinationibus multis irrigationibus hortorum, mondiciei, et ad temperandos aestus et algores pro tempore varietate. 3. Utilissima haec cava et hydraulica columna erit ad certam divisionem temporis in annos, menses, dies, dierumque partes, et horas; +'&$&!,"&µ [sic; +'&$&´ !"&%] hoc modo constituetur, ratioque reddetur horarum hyemalium, aestivarum, aequalium, inaequalium noctium et dierum, veris et aestatis, autumni, hyemis, accessus et recessus solis; ortus et occasus stellarum et c[etera], quod medicis, agrorum cultoribus, totique reipublicae commodum erit; ingenti namque campanarum sono tempestivae ac legitimae horae indicabuntur ita, ut quisque suis horis, licet mobilibus et velocibus bene uti possit. Clepshydram grecorum ac romanorum antiquum praeclarissimum inventum deperditum multorum saeculorum obscuritate renovabit. Aquarum namque casu ac pressione ponderum movebuntur tympana rotaeque variae ac earum calcatione supradicta mirabiliter /4r/ efficientur. Tactu quoque aeris et aquarum effusione agitabitur rota quam # %+́% µ&*("#&´ ) dixere Graeci, tibicines sonitu excitabunt cives ad certa stataque momenta[.] Sigilla et statuae versionibus variis, virgulis, ostendent lunationes, vertigines planetarum; egredientes et ingredientes musico concentu salutationem angelicam, hymnos et psalmos recitabunt, populo cum plausu spectante. Haec utilissima utique ac admiranda forte pauci tentare audebunt propter certas expensas, inepte tamen quotidie, et inutiliter erogatas a multis in aleas, accipitres, canes ac parascitos et propter difficultatem ac incertitudinem operis. Sufficiat dicere, ad omnem dubitationem tollendam, haec eadem olim apud aegyptios, romanos et graecos et alibi fuisse in usu familiari, ut ex Herone, Vitruvio, Plinio et aliis scriptoribus antiquis synchronis et neotericis patet. Mediolani quoque ab antiquis similia praestita, ut ex erutis aedificiis licuit videre. Hodie ab hominibus tenuioris fortunae similia reparata, neque desunt hac erudita aetate nostra ingeniosi homines, qui sicut sculptura, pictura, architectura, musica, poetica aliisque bonis artibus cum antiquis decertarunt et vicerunt, ita machinationibus pleumaticis [sic] sive spiritalibus et organis hydraulicis cum auctione superiores evadent; si non desit maecenas et fautor /4v/ studiorum, qui malaciam et appetitus fastidentium honoribus et praemiis sanare possit. Quod si piget experiri subtiliora et recundita magis, non omittenda saltem cava columna, fontes salientes, horologia cum sonitu campanarum quae facilitatem et utilitatem certissimam habent et ex diagrammatis etiam occulata inspectione dignoscetur. Minoribus etiam columnis sanctissimis crucibus iam Mediolani suppostis, mirabilis usus addi poterit, non sine praeclarissima cura antiquis emulatione; signomonicis rationibus circa eas stratis lapidibus ad columnarum magnitudines describantur circuli, et lineae ducantur indicantes diei partes, brevitates et depalationes, ipsamet cruce gnomonis officio fungente. Hinc agnoscent cives cruce Christi fulgoribus et umbris nos maxime admonere non minus in tenebris eclipsis passionum eius quam in splendoribus gloriae. Hinc recordabitur nobis ita inanes esse labores hominum sine Dei presentia, et auxilio, sicut lineae gnomonicae licet artificiossime ductae, si lumen non effulgeat a sole. Hinc etiam sagacissimi negotiatores discent, quae ratio sit habenda temporis et horarum; quantum referat suo quidque tempore, et suis horis peragere; post haec occasionem calvamd; perpetuam esse temporis fugam; quod semel elapsum numquam redire /5r/; minimoque momento maximas rerum inclinationes fieri; opus praeclarum et facile demonstrant verba Plinii ex cap. X, lib. VII [sic; 36, 15, 72] hic adscribenda. Obelisco in campo martio Augustus addidit mirabilem usum ad depraehendendas solis umbras dierumque ac noctium magnitudines, strato lapide ad obelisci magnitudinem, cui par fieret umbra Romae; confecto die, sexta hora paulatim per singulas regulas quae sunt ex aere inclusae, singulis diebus decresceret, ac rursus augesseret; digna cognitu res, ac ingenio foecundo. Manlius mathematicuse auratam apici pilam addidit, cuius vertice umbra colligeretur in semet ipsam, alia atque alia incrementa iaculantem apice, ratione, ut ferunt, a capite hominis intellectaf. Reliqua videantur apud Plinium. Addidit Manlius pilam aureatam, melius nos crucem sanctam. Non deerit Augustus ut spero; si supposita graphica descriptio, quod non potuerunt verba, satis explicabit; et quod stylus linguae non expressit, stylus manuum, in supplementum demonstrabit. a. ‘Manalis’ in classical Latin is an adjective, usually with ‘lapis’; but Mazenta uses a comma twice, before and after the word, so he clearly regarded it as a noun. b. Carlo Borromeo was canonised on 1st November 1610. c. The verb lacks an object here; perhaps “ascensiones faciles commodiores” but the sense seems clear enough. d. Personifications of ‘Kairos’ or ‘Occasio’ have hair at the front of the head, which can be seized, but is bald at the back. e. A traditional Renaissance misreading for “Novius Fecundus mathematicus”; the punctuation and readings were very confused in the Renaissance at this point; as late as C. Plinii Secundi historiae mundi tomus tertius, trad. Sigismundo Genelio, III, Venezia 1601, p. 392, they read “Manlius mathematicus”; but see C. Plinii Secundi Naturalis istoriae, ed. Jean Harduin, 5, Paris 1685, p. 298 “digna cognita res et ingenio secundo Mathematici. Apici auratam pilam addidit”,… with a note recording the reading “ingenio secundo. Manlius mathematicus”. f. The passage from “Obelisco in campo martio Augustus” to “intellecta” is copied more or less verbatim from Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 36, 15, 72. 111 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org The author thanks Giulia Sebregondi and Francesco Repishti for their invaluable help. 1. J. Susta, Die römische Kurie und das Konzil von Trient unter Pius IV, Wien 1914, 4, p. 454. 2. V. Forcella, Iscrizioni delle chiese e degli altri edifici di Milano, Milano 1892, 10, p. 64, no. 69. The inscription, which no longer exists, was inscribed on a scroll held by an angel between the statues of St Ambrose and Borromeo on an arch over the contrada San Clemente that joined the Arcivescovado to the old Visconti houses. The inscription, reported by Forcella, derives from G. Longoni, Milano illustrato album, Milano 1852, p. 234, who attributes the epigram to Ennodius; but there is no trace of anything like these lines in Ennodius (Ambrosius, Tutte le opere di Sant’Ambrogio. 24/2: Le fonti latine su Sant’Ambrogio, ed. G. Banterle, Milano-Roma 1991, pp. 126-131), even when adapted to include the name CAROLVS. 3. G. Ferrario, Monumenti sacri e profani dell’imperiale e reale basilica di Sant’Ambrogio di Milano, Milano 1824, pp. 36 ff. 4. D. Maselli, Saggi di storia eretica lombarda al tempo di San Carlo, Napoli 1979. 5. G. Scavizzi, Arte e architettura sacra. Cronache e documenti sulla controversia tra riformati e cattolici (1550-1550), Reggio Calabria 1981, passim; Id., The Controversy on Images from Calvin to Baronio, New York 1992 (Toronto Studies in Religion), passim; D. Freedberg, Art and Iconoclasm, 1525-1580; The Case of the Northern Netherlands, in Kunst voor de Beeldenstorm. Noordnederlandse Kunst, 1525-1580, catalogue, eds. J.P. Filedt Kok, W. HalesemaKubes, W.T. Kloek, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1986, pp. 69-84, esp. pp. 72 ff; L. Palmer Wendel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands. Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg and Basel, Cambridge 1994, passim. 6. Cf. the characteristic attacks by Erasmus in Peregrinatio religionis ergo, in Id., Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Rotterodami, eds. L.E. Halkin, F. Bierlaire, R. Hoven, Amsterdam 1972, 1, 3, 478 ff, where a number of the principal points are established; J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Henry Beveridge (1845), Grand Rapids (Michigan) 1989 (rep. 2001), III, ch. XX, 21, pp. 168 ff; Id., Traité des reliques [1543] (real title Advertissement tresutile du grand proffit qui reviendroit à la chrestienté s’il se faisoit inventoire de tous les corps sainctz, et reliques, qui sont tant en Italie, qu’en france, allemaigne, Hespaigne, et autres Royaumes et Pays, Geneva 1543), ed. F.M. Higman, in Jean Calvin, Three French Treatises, London 1970 (University of London, Athlone Renaissance Library). 7. See the ever useful H. Leclercq, Reliques, in Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, eds. F. Cabrol and H. Leclerq, 15 vols., Paris 1907-1953, 14, 2, pp. 2294 ff. 8. Calvin cites Carolus Sigonio, Caroli Sigonii Historiarum de regno Italiae libri quindecim, Venezia 1574, p. 386, for the story of Baldwin, II King of Jerusalem, who captured Caesarea in 1101 and acquired the vessel of emerald used at the last supper: “Balduinus in Syria Caesaream genuensibus adiuvantibus cepit. Ex eius urbis praeda vas smaragdinum genuensibus obtigit, quo Christus in Coena ultima dicitur esse usus. Itaque hodie quoque Genuae eo nomine illud religiossime asservatur”. 9. Ambrosius, De obitu Theodosii, in Id., Tutte le opere di Sant’Ambrogio. 18: Le orazioni funebri. Discorsi e lettere 1, ed. G. Banterle, Milano-Roma, 1985, pp. 211251. 10. Sources in note 45 below. 11. The vituperative Anthony Munday, English Roman Life, London 1582, reprinted as The English Roman Life, ed. P.J. Ayres, Oxford 1980, pp. 76 ff, gleefully ridicules Catholic stories about the nails, particularly Platina’s; on p. 78 he reports that Bishop Jewel of Salisbury, fulminating against popish views about the nails, counted 17 in all; and the Bishop had recently discovered that certain gentlemen in his diocese were worshipping another nail, bringing the number to 18. 12. Cf. Bernardino Corio, L’Historia di Milano, Venezia 1565, p. 122: “[Barbarossa] si fece ancho portar dietro i corpi de’ Santi Gervaso e Protaso, Nabore e Felice, e gli trasferì in Alemagna nella terra di Brisach presso il Reno, nella chiesa di S. Stefano, come appare per una scrittura da me havuta di Lamagna”. 13. Inscriptions: [at bottom] “Ex instrumentis passionis DNJC in variis ecclesiis”; [at top] “De ligno S. Crucis in variis ecclesiis”; [at left below arm of cross] “De spongia in S. Barnaba”; [at left, middle] “De columna in variis ecclesiis”; [below right arm of cross] “Clavus in freno in ecclesia maiori”; [at right] “De spinea corona in variis ecclesiis”. 14. Matthias Flacius Illyricus et al., Ecclesiastica Historia […] congesta […] per aliquot studiosos et pios viros in urbe magdeburgica, 13 vols., Basel 1559-1574 (henceforth Flacius, EH); O.K.Olson, Matthias Flacius and the Survival of Luther’s Reform, Wiesbaden 2002 (Wolfenbütteler Abhandlungen zur Renaissanceforschung), pp. 256 ff, for the question of the authorship. 15. I have used Martin Chemnitz, Examen concilii tridentini, Geneva 1614, which includes the four parts of the original edition published between 1565-1573; part IV, 1573, pp. 1-12 for relics; pp. 28-45 for images. Part I of the Examen was translated by F. Kramer as Examination of the Council of Trent. Part I by Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), St. Louis (Missouri) 1971. A copious reply to Chemnitz soon came: Iudocus Ravesteyn, Apologiae seu defensiones sancti concilii tridentini […] adversus censuras et examen Martini Kemnitii, Louvain 1568-1570. 16. Cf., for example, H. Bullinger, De origine erroris in divorum ac simulacrorum cultu, Basel 1529, D4, for an attack on Constantine’s church building; G3 for the abominable relic-cult; “adorant nonnulli caligam Iosephi, alii calceos Thomae, alii ocreas Martini, alii ensem Georgii, alii mulierum concinnos, vestes, camisias et munccosa quaedam sudariola”; he also opposed pilgrimages to shrines with relics. 17. Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], p. 12 18. Ibid., pp. 2 ff, for what follows; Augustine, De Civitate Dei [hereafter Civ.], 22, 9 and 10 (Patrologia cursus completus, series latina, 224 vols., ed. J-.P. Migne, Paris 1841-1864 [hereafter PL,], 41, 772: “Faciunt autem ista martyres, vel potius Deus aut orantibus aut operantibus eis, ut fides illa proficiat, qua eos non deos nostros esse, sed unum Deum nobiscum habere credamus […]. Nos autem martyribus nostris non templa sicut diis, sed memorias sicut hominibus mortuis quorum apud Deum vivunt spiritus, fabricamus. Nec ibi erigimus altaria in quibus sacrificemus martyribus, sed uni Deo et martyrum et nostro”. 19. Jerome, Contra Vigilantium, 5 (PL, 23, 357-359): “Quis enim, o insavum caput, aliquando martyres adoravit? quis hominem putavit Deum? […] Dolet martyrum reliquias pretioso operiri velamine; et non vel pannis, vel cilicio colligari, vel proiici in sterquilinum; ut solus Vigilantius ebrius et dormiens adoretur. Ergo sacrilegi sumus, quando apostolorum basilicas ingredimus? Sacrilegus fuit Constantius Imperator I, qui sanctas reliquias Andreae, Lucae et Timothei transtulit Constantinopolim, apud quas daemones rugiunt et inhabitatores Vigilantii illorum se sentire praesentiam confitentur?” 20. Miracle at the Tomb of Elisha (II Kings, 13, 21); Ecclesiasticus, 48 (Elias); “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because ye build the tombs of prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous” (Matthew, 23, 29). 21. Exodus, 13, 19; Joshua, 24, 32-33. 22. They burned the bodies of Saul and his sons and buried them under a tree (I Samuel, 31, 12-13); the bones of Saul and Jonathan are buried in the sepulchre of Kish (II Samuel, 21, 13); Josiah takes the bones out of the sepulchres and burns them (4 Reg., 23, 16); Cyril, Contra Iulianum, 10 (Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, 162 vols., ed. J-.P. Migne, Paris 1857-1866 [hereafter PG,], 76, 1015 ff) according to whom it is right that the dead should be buried reverently in church and hidden properly in the ground. 23. Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], pp. 5b ff: “Sed Pontifici in Scriptura non multum sibi praesidii positum videntes, totam hanc controversiam a Scripturae norma ad Patres et ad veteres consuetudines transponere conantur”. 24. Epistola Smyrnensis, in Eusebius, HE, 4, 15 (PG, 20, 339): the body of Polycarpus was burnt and the Christians gathered him up in a precious container; Eusebius, HE, 7, 16, for Astirius and Marinus; Id., HE, 7, 22, 9, for many other saints. 25. Gaius in Eusebius, HE, 2, 25 (PG, 20, 209); D.W. O’Connor, Peter in Rome. The Literary, Liturgical and Archeological Evi- dence, New York-London 1969. 26. Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], p. 8; Plutarch, Demetrius, 53; Theseus, 36; Cimon, 8, 5. 27. Flacius, EH, 4, 6, 456; Chrysostom, PG, 50, 527 ff and 533 ff; variations on the story of Babila in Rufinus, HE, 1, 35 (PL, 21, 503), Socrates, HE, 3, 18 (PG, 67, 426), and Sozomenus, HE, 5, 19 (PG, 67, 1120-1121); H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyrs, 2nd ed., Bruxelles 1933, pp. 54 ff. 28. Flacius, EH, 4, ch. 13, 1446.24; 5, 6, 697; and in the sixth centuria “deploranda sane est caecae mortalitatis stulticia, et plane impia fingendi sibi cultus temeritas et audacia, quod honorem uni viventi Deo debitum e mortuis creaturis tribuere ethnicorum more non vereatur” (ibid., 6, 6, 347). 29. Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], pp. 8 ff; Aelian, Varia historia, 12, 64. 30. Chrysostom, In ep. ad Rom. Hom. 32 (PG, 60, 678): quoted by Borromeo in Acta ecclesiae mediolanensis (hereafter AEM), vols. 2-4, ed. A. Ratti, Milano 1890-1896, 3, 508-509; Thomas Stapleton, Admiranda et vere admiranda sive de magnitudine et urbis et ecclesiae romanae, Roma 1600, p. 19, quotes the same text. 31. Basil, Homilia in 40 martyres (PG, 31, 522); Homilia in Mamantem martyrem (PG, 31, 599); same thought in Chrysostom, Laudatio martyrum aegyptiorum (PG, 50, 693-8); Jerome, Contra Vigilantium (PL, 23, 353 ff); Augustine, Civ., 22, 8 passim (PL, 760-771); Augustine, Epist. 137, 4, 13 (PL, 33, 521 ff), for the miracles of the magi of Egypt, bettered by Moses because God was behind him (Exodus, 7 and 8). Greg. Naz., Oratio I contra Julianum, 49: “Non victimas pro Christo caesas [re]veritus es? nec magnos pugiles extimuisti, Joannem illum, Petrum, Paulum, Jacobum, Stephanum, Lucam, Andream, Theclam ac eos qui post illos et ante illos capitis sui periculo veritatem protexerunt etc.?” (PG, 35, 590). 32. Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], pp. 10 ff; Flacius had already used this type of counter-attack in the Catalogus testium veritatis…, Argentinae 1562 (this is a reissue of the Basle edition of 1556 which is unusable because there is only an index of authors for a book with 1095 pages); there he cites many objectors to the growing cult of relics and its accompanying cerimonie; 23b-c (Vigilantius), 24a (Antonius the Hermit), 64a (Claudius Altisidiorensis); 94D (Claudius Taurinensis). Protestants often point to Church councils, particularly that of Elvira (Elibertano, c. 300) which had opposed the presence of images in church and in the home: can. 36: “Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur, et adoratur, in parietibus depingere”; can. 41: “Admoneri placuit fideles, ut in quantum possint prohibeant ne idola in domibus suis habeant”; can. 60: “Si quis idola fregerit et ibidem fuerit occisus, quatenus in Evangelio scriptum non est neque invenietur sub Apostolis unquam factum, placuit in numerum eum non recipi martyrum” (G.D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima 112 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org collectio, Lucca 1748-1752, rep. Paris 1902, 2, 1-19; C.J. Hefele, H. Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, 11 vols., Parigi 19071952, I, I, pp. 212-264). 33. Augustine, De moribus eccl. catholicae, 34 (PL, 32, 1342); Civ., 8, 27 (PL, 41, 256); De opere monachorum, 28, on the false trade in relics (PL, 40, 575: “Alii membra martyrum, si tamen martyrum, venditant; alii fimbrias et phylacteria sua magnificant […]”). 34. Cyril, Contra Iulianum, 10 (PG, 76, 1015 ff). 35. Eusebius, HE, 6, 11, 2 (PG, 20, 542). 36. Indispensable collection of material in H. Leclercq, Croix, in Dictionnaire…, cit. [cf. note 7], 3, 2, pp. 3045 ff; H. Quilliet, Croix, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 17 vols., eds. A. Vacant and E. Mangenot, Paris 1909-1967, 3, pp. 23392363. 37. Flacius, EH, 3, 6, 121; Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], pp. 17 ff 38. As Protestants pointed out, even the two earliest sources disagreed with each other; Lactantius reported that Constantine saw the cross only in a dream, not a vision (De mortibus persecutorum, 44, 4 [PL, 7, 261]), Eusebius that he saw it in both a vision and a dream (Vita Constantini, 1, 28-29 [PG, 20, 943 ff]); T.D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, Cambridge (Mass.)-London 1981, p. 43. Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, trans. A. Cameron, S.G. Hall, Oxford 1999, pp. 38-39 and 204-213; Eusebius does not report the vision in the HE, but in the Vita Constantini, 1, 28, 29, 30, he says that he himself heard of it from Constantine and that he saw the original labarum (PG, 20, 943 ff). 39. Flacius, EH, 4, 12, 1434-1442, for Constantine and miracles: “quamobrem Deus etiam non ob superstitiosam hominum opinionem, quasi in eo signo vis inesset, sed propter agnitionem Dei, fidem, invocationem et professionem verae religionis fecit, ut quaedam mirabilia circa id signum acciderent”. 40. Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], p. 28: “Christiani digitis in aere formabant figuram transversam quasi crucis, et ita se signabant”. 41. Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 4, 21 (PG, 20, 1167) (shields of soldiers marked with crosses and crosses now used as standards); Sozomenus, HE, 1, 8 (PG, 67, 875 ff). 42. Nicephorus, HE, 7, 47 and 49 (PG, 145, 1323 and 1327). 43. Zonaras, Annales, 13, 3 (PG, 134, 1099). 44. Note 9 for the De obitu Theodosii; for the passage about Helen, sometimes regarded as a later insertion by Ambrose, to strengthen an otherwise weak oration on Theodosius, C. Favez, L’épisode de l’invention de la croix dans l’Oraison funèbre de Théodose par Saint Ambroise, in “Revue des études latines”, 10, 1932, pp. 423-429. 45. Rufinus, HE, I, 8 (PL, 21, 476); Socrates HE, 1, 17 (PG, 67, 113-4); Theodoretus, HE, 1, 16 (PG, 82, 957 ff); Sozomenus, HE, 2, 1 (PG, 67, 930-4); Cassiodorus, Historia tripartita, 2, 18, 5 (PL, 69, 937); Nicephorus, HE, 8, 29 (PG, 146, 109 ff). 46. Flacius, EH, 4, 12, 1438. 47. Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 3, 25 ff (PG, 20, 942 ff), for Constantine in Jerusalem and the letter to Makarios; 3, 42-46, for Helen. Eusebius’ Life of Constantine [cf. note 38], p. 280. 48. Cesare Baronio, Annales ecclesiastici, a cura di P.A. Pagio, Lucca 1738-1746, 4, year 326, XXXVIII, XLII ff, for Helen and the Cross. Extensive discussion of when and by whom the story was invented in M. Sordi, Dall’elmo di Costantino alla corona ferrea, in Costantino il Grande. Dall’antichità all’umanesimo (Colloquio sul Cristianesimo nel mondo antico, Macerata, dicembre 1990), 2 vols., Macerata 1992, 2, pp. 883-892. 49. Flacius, EH, 4, 4, 302: “Ambrosius, vel quisquis est auctor orationis funebris de obitu Theodosii, multa commemorat superstitiosa de cruce inventa ab Helena; quod sit vexillum divinum ad remedium peccatorum, sacramentum salutis. Quae certe vehementer contumeliosa sunt in meritum Christi, ac pugnant cum fide”; and at 4, 13, 1439 they declare that “verum Erasmus iudicat, haec scripta non esse Ambrosii”; Nicholas Harpsfeldt and Alan Cope, Dialogi sex contra summi pontificatus, monasticae vitae, sanctorum, sacrarum imaginum oppugnatores et pseudomartyres, Antwerp 1566, p. 459, also report Erasmus’s opinion. 50. Ambrosius, De obitu Theodosii, cit. [cf. note 9]: “De uno clavo frenos [not ‘frenum’] fieri praecepit, de altero diadema intexuit”. 51. Gregory of Tours, De gloria martyrum, 1, 6 (PL, 71, 710). 52. They used more nails to increase the agony of the victim: “Nos legimus martyris clavos et multos quidem ut plura fuerint vulnera, quam membra” (Ambrosius, Exhortatio Verginitatis, 2, 9, in Id., Tutte le opere di Sant’Ambrogio. 14.1: Verginità e vedovanza. Opere morali 2.1, ed. F. Gori, Milano-Roma 1989, p. 206). Jacob Greutzer, Iacobi Gretseri S.J. De cruce Christi rebusque ad eam pertinentibus, Ingolstadt 1596, Bk. I, ch. 20, for a massively documented discussion. 53. Jacobi a Voragine legenda aurea vulgo historia lombardica dicta, rec. Th. Graesse, Dresden-Leipzig 1846, 68, pp. 303-310; Jacques de Voragine. La Légende dorée, eds. A. Boureau, M. Goullet, P. Collomb, L. Moulinier, S. Mula, D. DonadieuRigaut, Paris 2004 (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), 64, pp. 363-372. Cf. Jean Molanus, Traité des saintes images [Louvain 1570, Ingolstadt 1594], eds. F. Bœspflug, O. Christin, B. Tassel, Paris 1996, bk. 1, ch. 4, p. 489, and bk. 1, ch. 6, pp. 494-496. 54. Flacius, EH, 4, 13, 1439-40; Socrates, HE, 1, 17 (PG, 67, 113-114); Nicephorus, HE, 8, 55, for the three great crosses (PG, 145, 119 ff and 122). 55. Flacius, EH, 4, ch. 16, 1552.32; Arnobius, Contra gentes, 6, 14 ff, a general blast against images and statues (PL, 53, 1193). Another example of the fights over the efficacy of the cross is this; the Magdeburgers (EH, 4, 13, 1445-1446; 4, 15, 1493.19) report a bizarre story in Theodoretus (HE, 3, 3, 1 [PG, 82, 1086]) and others (Sozomenus, HE, 5, 2 [PG, 67, 1211-1214]) about Julian the Apostate. Julian entered a temple and put or made the sign of the cross on his forehead; all the daemones fled and Julian attributed this to the power of the cross. But his companion said that the daemones had not run away from the cross but because of the terrible things that he, Julian, had done. The Centurians are ferociously attacked by Harpsfeldt, Cope, Dialogi…, cit. [cf. note 49], pp. 480-481, who identify the mago detestabilior sophista as one Brentius (I do not know how) because they reported the story in order to demonstrate doubt about the power of the cross. In defence of the Centurians, however, it should be noted that they merely reported the story flatly from the sources without comment, and indeed called Julian’s interlocutor magus and praestigiator; that is, they merely indicate that there was, as the sources suggest, room for doubt. 56. Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], p. 28. 57. Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 1, 40 (PG, 20, 954); Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, cit. [cf. note 38], pp. 216-217, on the statue of Constantine holding the cross in Rome with the inscription stating that by virtue of the cross he had liberated the city from tyranny and set free the senate and people. Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 3, 49 (PG, 20, 1109) for the fountains in the middle of the market decorated with the Good shepherd and Daniel and the lions forged in brass. 58. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio in Theodorum Martyrem (PG, 46, 738), talking of the rich decoration in a chapel, the wooden animals, the silver encrustation, the paintings with the exploits of martyrs and religious stories in the pavements too, a splendid resting place for relics; cf. Nilus to Olympiodorus (Epist., 4, 61 [PG, 79, 578-579]); Epiphanius, Ep. ad Ioannem, 9 (PG, 43, 390) on entering the church at Anablatha he saw the image of Christ or some saint on a veil in foribus, which he then tore down. 59. Eusebius, HE, 7, 18, 2-3 (PG, 20, 679); see also John Damascene, De imaginibus, 3, 69 (PG, 94, 1374); Sozomenus, HE, 5, 21 (PG, 67, 1279); Philostorgius (368-after 425), HE, 7, 3 (PG, 65, 538-539), says that it was next to a fountain with others statues; it was put in the diaconium of the church, but later damaged severely by pagans under Julian. 60. Aelius Lampridius, Vita Severi Alexandri, in the Historia Augusta, 29. 61. Acta colloquii Montis Belligartensis quod habitum est anno Christi 1586 […] inter clarissimos viros D. Iacobum Andreae et T. Bezam, Tübingen 1586, pp. 417 ff; he continues “Laudatur Ezechias (2 Kings, 18, 4) quod contriverit serpentem aeneum, cui cultus divinus exhibetur: ita etiam laudandos existimo eos, qui ad cavendam eandem idololatriam etiam crucifixi imaginem abolent, et ex templis omnibusque locis sacris eliminant”; see also the Epitome colloquii Montisbelgartensis inter D. Iacobum et D. Theodorum Bezam…, Tübingen 1588. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. I, ch. 88, characterises Luther’s attitude towards the cross thus: “[…] capitale odium adversus crucem exerit”; he objected to it being adored, to the use of its particulae and to the dedication of churches to the cross (Wittenberg Cathedral was dedicated to the St Corona), and to the neglect of the poor whilst crosses are decorated with gold and silver and churches provided with huge funds. The cross is kissed, adored and put in “monstrantiis argento circumdata”, which is idolatry. Nowhere in the scriptures does it say that the cross should be adored. Luther said that “currunt rudiores hinc inde ad crucem Dorgaviam, Dresdam, et sicubi aliis in locis crux asservatur, imo et ad illas, in quibus Christus non pependit. Circumcursatio ista non est inventio crucis, sed potius altior sub terram defossio […]. Quia persuadent sibi crucem Dorgaviensem hoc posse, et alteram id non posse. Quae opinio et persuasio certo certius a Diabolo profecta est. Et quare crux, quae apud nos est, non polleret eadem virtute, cum ambae sint ligneae”. 62. Chemnitz, Examen…, cit. [cf. note 15], pp. 43 ff; Claudius, Epistola 12, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolarum tomus IV karolini aevi, ed. E. Duemmler, Berlin 1895, 611-612; Jonae de cultu imaginum libri tres, 1 (PL, 106, 336); cf. C. Chazelle, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era. Theology and Art of Christ’s Passion, Cambridge 2001, pp. 120-123. 63. Johann Maier Eck, Enchiridion locorum communium adversus lutteranos Iohanne Echio autore, Venezia 1531. 64. Conrad Braun, Conradi Bruni iureconsulti opera tria nunc primum edita, Moguntiae 1548, which includes the De caerimoniis libri sex…, pp. 71-82, with a lengthy discussion of the importance of the cross. 65. John Martiall, A Treatyse of the Crosse gathred out of the Scriptures, Councelles and Auncient Fathers of the primitive church, Antwerp 1564 (reprinted by The Scolar Press, Menston [Yorkshire] 1974), which prompted a rapid reply by James Calfhill, An Avnswere to the Treatise of the Crosse…, London 1565. 66. Harpsfeldt, Cope, Dialogi…, cit. [cf. note 49]. Scavizzi, The Controversy on Images…, cit. [cf. note 5], pp. 84 ff, for some comments on this book. 67. Molanus, Traité… , cit. [cf. note 53], esp. bk. 2, chs. 7 and 45. 68. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52]. See P. Bernard, Gretser, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, cit. [cf. note 36], 6, 2, 1866-1871; A. Hirschmann, Gretsers Schriften über das Kreuz, in “Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie”, 21, 1896, pp. 256-300. 69. Scavizzi, The Controversy on Images…, cit. [cf. note 5], pp. 205 ff, on the cross is 113 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org fundamental. Doctrinal position: J. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine: 3, The Growth of Mediaeval Theology (600-1300), Chicago 1978, pp. 131 ff, on the cross; pp. 174184, cult of relics. 70. Session 25 of December 1563 (N.P. Tanner, G. Alberigo, et al., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Georgetown 1990, 2, pp. 774-776). Council of Florence in 1573 (Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum…, cit. [cf. note 32], 35, 729). 71. Critobolus was a disciple of Socrates (Cicero, De Senectute, 17, 59). 72. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. I, ch. 50, citing the often-quoted passage in Euthymius, Euthymii monachi zigabeni orthodoxae fidei dogmata panoplia, translated for the first time by Pietro Francesco Zini, London 1556, Panopliae, pars II, titulus XX, pp. 689 ff: “Quemadmodum enim antequam Christus in crucem ageretur, ipsa crux mortis erat instrumentum execrabile, et eius figura fugienda et detestanda; ita posteaquam vero Christus ei fuit affixus, sanguine et aqua domini sanctificata, figuram suam cunctis fidelibus exhibet sanctificationem. Atque ita crux, quae prius homines tollebat, postea demones eiecit, atque expulit”. Euthymius continues by quoting the honour-to-the-prototypeargument. 73. Note 62. 74. M. Minucius Felix, Octavius, 9 and 29 (PL, 3, 272 and 345 ff). 75. Harpsfeldt, Cope, Dialogi…, cit. [cf. note 49], pp. 458 ff; Martiall, A Treatyse…, cit. [cf. note 65], pp. 88r and 99 ff. 76. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. II, ch. 54. 77. Martiall, A Treatyse…, cit. [cf. note 65], p. 89; Paulinus, Epist. 31 to Severus (PL, 61, 325 ff); Poema 28, De S. Felice natal. carmen 10 (PL, 61, 665-666). 78. Tanner, Alberigo, Decrees…, cit. [cf. note 70], 2, pp. 663-665. 79. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. II, ch. 23, quoting Cicero, Pro Q. Rabirio perduellionis reo ad quirites oratio, 5, 16: “Nomen ipsius [ipsum] crucis absit non modo a corpore civium romanorum, set etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus. Harum enim omnium rerum non solum eventus atque perpessio, set etiam conditio, exspectatio, mentio [ipsa] denique indigna cive romano atque homine libero est”. 80. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. I, ch. 60; Constantine forbids crucifixion (Sozomenus, HE, 1, 8 [PG, 67, 882]); Cassiodorus, Historia tripartita, 1, 9 (PL, 69, 893): Nicephorus, HE, 7, 46 etc. (PG, 145, 1317); Aurelius Victor, Liber de Caesaribus, 41, 4 (“vetus teterrimumque supplicium patibolorum et cruribus suffringendis primus removerit”). 49 (PG, 20, 1109), for the crosses of precious stone and gold in the ceiling of the principal appartment of the palace; ibid., 3, 3 (PG, 20, 1057), for the painting of the cross in encaustic above the door of his palace (Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, cit. [cf. note 38], pp. 255-256); Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 4, 15 (PG, 20, 1163), for his image on coins with eyes raised as in prayer; full size statues over the entrances of palaces in some cities; ibid., 4, 16, he forbids his own likeness in temples (Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, cit. [cf. note 38], p. 315). 91. Harpsfeldt, Cope, Dialogi…, cit. [cf. note 49], pp. 469 ff; Prudentius, Cathemerinon, Hymn 6 (PL, 59, 839, lines 131136); Dionysius the Areopagite, De eccles. hierarchia, 6 (PG, 3, 527); Justin, Apologia, 1, 55 (PG, 6, 412), etc. etc. 83. Harpsfeldt, Cope, Dialogi…, cit. [cf. note 49], pp. 486-487; referring to Flacius, EH [cf. note 14], 4, 13, 1440 (“mediocriter in doctrina christiana instructus”), and Epist. dedicatoria, 4, p. 10. 93. Tertullian, Apologeticus, 16 (PL, 1, 421 ff); Cf. Alcuin, De div. officiis, 18 (PL, 101, 1210B); on certain days the cross is put before the altar and kissed. 84. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. I, ch. 61, supplies enormous lists. 85. Martiall, A Treatyse…, cit. [cf. note 65], p. 19v, citing Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psal. IV., v. 6 (PL, 70, 50). For the apotropaic qualities of cross, Martiall, A Treatyse…, pp. 89r ff, quotes Euthymius, Panopliae, pars II, titulus XIX: “Per virtutem crucis daemonum expelluntur catervae et aegrotationes variae curantur, ea gratia et virtute que semel in prototypo et primogenito fuit efficax, ad ipsius quoque crucis effigies, una cum simili efficacia procedente”. 86. Harpsfeldt-Cope, Dialogi…, cit. [cf. note 49], p. 480, for the set piece in Athanasius (c. 296-373), De incarnatione verbi, 31 (known to Harpsfeldt and Cope as De humanitate verbi et corporali adventu): “Signo crucis omnia magica compescuntur, beneficia inefficacia fiunt, idola universa deferuntur, omnis irrationabilis voluptas conquiescit, quilibet e terra ad caelos suspicit […] solo signo crucis homo utens, dolos daemonum a se propellit. Veniat qui istorum dictorum experimentum capere velit, et in ipsis praestigiis daemonum, et imposturis vaticiniorum, et in miraculis magiae utatur signo crucis ab ipso deriso, nomenque Christi invocet, et videbit quo modo eius rei metu Daemones fugiant, vaticinia conquiescant, magiae et veneficia iaceant” (Harpsfeldt and Cope’s version; PG, 25, 150-151). But there were many other witnesses as well: Lactantius, Institutiones, 4, 27, who says that even before Constantine, Christians with crosses on their foreheads could silence the Daemon (PL, 6, 531 ff). Theodoretus, HE, 3,1 (PG, 82, 1085), and Sozomenus, HE, 5, 2 (PG, 67, 1213-1214). 87. Harpsfeldt, Cope, Dialogi…, cit. [cf. note 49], pp. 482 ff; Augustine, Civ., 22, 8 (PL, 41, 761-764), also cited by Martiall, A Treatyse…, cit. [cf. note 65], p. 104v; Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum, 3, 2, for King Oswald and the miracle at Hexham. 88. Harpsfeldt, Cope, Dialogi…, cit. [cf. note 49], pp. 469 ff, and Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. II, ch. 47, against Flacius, EH, Cent. 4, 13. 81. See notes 57, 82. 89. Ibid., 4, 6, 459. 82. Martiall, A Treatyse…, cit. [cf. note 65], p. 86v; Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 3, 90. Ibid., 2, 6, 110-111; cf. Justin, Apologia, 1, 55 (PG, 6, 412). 92. Flacius, EH, 7, 6, 191: “Sergius […] adorationem et exosculationem crucis invenit”. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. I, ch. 46, cites Evagrius, HE, 4, 26 (PG, 86, 2746), dating the practice of kissing the cross to time of Chosroes I (531-578) or Chosroes II (590-628!). 94. Tanner, Alberigo, Decrees…, cit. [cf. note 70], I, p. 136. 95. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa totius theologiae D. Thomae de Aquino […] per F. Seraphinum Capponi a Porrecta […] editis […] Commentaria reuer.mi D. Thomae De Vio Caietani…, Venezia 1596, Tertia pars, quaestio 25, articulus 4, pp. 266-267. 96. Ambrosio Catarino Politi, Enarrationes RPF Ambrosii Catharini Politi Senensis…, Roma 1551-1552, which includes his Disputatio […] de cultu et adoratione imaginum, cols. 135-136. 97. Francisci Turriani societatis Iesu adversus magdeburgenses centuriatores pro canonibus apostolorum et epistolis decretalibus pontificum apostolicorum libri quinque, Firenze 1572, I, 25, p. 111. So too Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. I, ch. 49: “si res significata honoretur latria, etiam imago colatur latria; si dulia, imago quoque dulia; si hyperdulia, imago itidem hyperdulia” (cf. John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, 4, 11 [PG, 94, 1127-1134]); Athanasius, Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem, nos. 139-141 (PG, 28, 622-623). 98. St Peter Canisius, for example, in his notes for his sermons of June 1564 (Beati Petri Canisii Epistulae et Acta, ed. O. Braunsberger, 6 vols, Freiburg 1905, 4, pp. 871-872) would have touched upon the fact that the faithful should wear the cross or make the sign; Braunsberger cites Tertullian, De Corona, III (PL, 2, 99); Cyril, Catacheses IV, no. 14 (PG, 33, 471, 815); Ambrose, Epist., 72, no. 12 (PL, 16, 1247); Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses, 1, 2, haer. 30, no. 8 (PG, 41, 419): that the cross should be erected in church and elsewhere in the city, and that it makes the daemones flee, etc.; Braunsberger cites Athanasius, Oratio de Incarnatione verbi, 31, 47 (PG, 25, 149, 180), and Oratio contra gentes, 1 (PG, 35, 5). 99. Jerome, Epist. 107 ad Laetam (tr. F.A. Wright, Select letters of St. Jerome, London-New-York 1933, p. 343 [PL, 22, 869-70]). 100. Rufinus, HE, 2, 29 (PL, 21, 537). 101. Martiall, A Treatyse…, cit. [cf. note 65], p. 41; Lactantius, De Passione Domini, (PL, 7, 283), verses 1-4, then verses 47-49. 102. Epist., 4, 61 (PG, 79, 578-579). 103. Sermon 52 (PL, 57, 339-340): “[…] arbor enim quaedam in navi crux est in ecclesia, quae inter totius saeculi blanda et perniciosa naufragia incolumis sola servatur. In hac ergo navi quisquis aut arbori crucis se religaverit, aut aures suas scripturas divinis clauserit, dulcem procellam luxuriae non timebit”, etc. 104. All cited by Martiall, A Treatyse…, cit. [cf. note 65], pp. 40r ff. Martiall quotes a Council of Orleans – “Nemo ecclesiam aedificet antequam episcopus civitatis veniat et ibidem crucem figat” – and a Council of Tours, which he calls Tours II, can. 2 – “Ut corpus domini in altari non in armario, sed sub crucis titulo componatur” –, but I have not been able to identify which of the many he refers to. Cf. the celebrated Council of 691 at Constaninople, called ‘in Trullo’, can. 73, in Hefele, Leclercq, Histoire…, cit. [cf. note 32], 3, p. 572: “Le respect que nous devons à la sainte croix exige qu’on ne représente jamais sur le pavé l’image de la croix, de peur que cette image ne soit foulée aux pieds”; see also note 165. 105. The two homilies De cruce et latrone (PG, 49, 399 ff and 407 ff); In ven. crucem Sermo, of dubious authorship (PG, 50, 815-820: 819); Homilia de adoratione pretiosae crucis (PG, 52, 835-840). 106. Chrysostom, Lib. adv. Gentiles, Quod Christus fit Deus (PG, 48, 813 ff; from 826); cited by Conrad Braun in Conradi Bruni iureconsulti…, cit. [cf. note 64], p. 77. And there is more of the same in Chrysostom’s Homilia 55 in Matt. 16 with a citation of Augustine’s report of the curing of the woman with cancer. 107. See Tanner, Alberigo, Decrees…, cit. [cf. note 70]. Cf. the Council of Florence in 1573 (Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum…, cit. [cf. note 32], 35, 729). 108. Cf. Mark, 5, 27-30; Luke, 8, 43-4; Acts, 5, 14-15. 109. Augustine, Contra Faustum, 20, 23 (PL, 42, 207). Johannes Cochlaeus, De sanctorum invocatione et intercessione, deque imaginibus et reliquiis eorum pie riteque colendis liber unus. Iohannis Cochlei Germani adversus Henricum Bullingerum Helveti(c)um, Ingolstadt 1544, ch. II, starts from Augustine’s declarations in the Contra Faustum, and declares that “Colimus ergo martyres eo cultu dilectionis et societatis, quo et in hac vita coluntur sancti homines Dei, quorum corda ad talem pro evangelica veritate passionem parata esse sentimus; sed illos tanto devotius, quanto securius post incerta omnia superata. Quanto etiam fidentiore laude predicamus iam in vita foeliciore victores quam in ista adhuc usque pugnantes”. 110. John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, 4, 16 (PG, 94, 1167-1175). 111. Luigi Lippomano, Confirmatione et stabilmento di tutti li dogmi catholici, con la subuersione di tutti i fondamenti, motiui & ragioni delli Moderni Heretici fino al numero 482, Venezia 1553, fols. 181v ff. 112. None of the Catholic writers I have consulted mentions the long defence and list of translationes by Nicephorus, HE, 114 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org 14, 39 (PG, 146, 1190 ff), perhaps because it was far too late to be of any use for 16th century Catholics as a defence of the practice in the apostolic period. 113. Eusebius, HE, 4, 15 (PG, 20, 339 ff); Baronio, Annales…, cit. [cf. note 48], 1, year 55, XVII: “sic nos postea ossa eius potiora lapillis pretiosis auroque puriora, ex cineribus selecta, eo loco reposuimus, qui illis erat decorus consentaneusque. Ubi sane nobis aliquando in unum coactis, Dominus praestabit, ut celebrem eius martyrii diem instar natalis festi, cum exultatione et gaudio quantum fieri potest maximo recolamus”; cf. Eusebius, HE, 5, 1 (PG, 20, 407 ff; martyrs in Gaul), and 7, 12 (PG, 20, 647; martyrs at Caesarea). 114. Ambrosius, Ad Marcellam epist. 77 (Id., Tutte le opere di Sant’Ambrogio, 21: Lettere (70-77). Discorsi e lettere II-III, ed. G. Banterle, Milano-Roma 1988, pp. 154-167); Augustine, Civ., 22, 8 (PL, 41, 761), and Confessiones, 9, 7 (PL, 32, 770). 115. Cochlaeus, De sanctorum invocatione…, cit. [cf. note 109]: “Quae est haec hominis insania, ut aequum existimet, sibi uni plus credendum esse, contra tot saeculorum fidem certamque rerum experientiam, quam toti mundo, cum nihil probationis afferat, nisi pertinax et inverecundum obstinate incredulitatis suae verbum istud”. 116. Johannes Cochlaeus (Dobneck), De sacris reliquiis Christi et sanctorum eius. Brevis contra Ioannis Calvini calumnias et blasphemias responsio, Mogunza 1549. 117. Similar defences can be found elsewhere, particularly in Lippomano’s voluminous Sanctorum priscorum patrum vitae numero centum sexagintatres…, Venezia 1551, on cc. 89-97. Lippomano presents the life of St Babila, derived from Chrysostom [see note 27]; the transportatio of Babylas was believed to have been the first, and Lippomano presents a very long defence of relics, their apotropaic qualities, the daemones they banished, etc., etc. 118. Roberto Bellarmino, Disputationes Roberti Bellarmini […] de controversiis christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos, 3 vols., Ingolstadt 1593-1597, I, 2187-2296. 119. Baronio, Annales…, cit. [cf. note 48], 1, year 55, 9 ff. Gennadius, De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus, ch. 73 (PL, 58, 997): “Sanctorum corpora et praecipue beatorum martyrum reliquias, perinde ac si Christi membra sincerissime honoranda, et basilicas eorum nominibus appellatas, velut loca sancta divino cultui mancipata, affectu piissimo et devotione fidelissima adeundas credimus. Si quis contra hanc sententiam venerit, non Christianus, sed Eunomianus, et Vigilantianus creditur”. so exordio nascentis Christi Ecclesiae emergentes, et Christi crucis memoriam penitus abolere conantes, ipsa Catholica Ecclesia cum adversus eos vehementius obniteretur, non tantum Christi crucem verbis profiteretur, sed signis et factis. Indeque est ductum principium, ut instar crucis, in qua passus est Christus, ligno compactae cruces erigerentur in titulum, quas fideles venerarentur, easdemque diabolus exhorresceret, velut (quod dicit Ignatius) trophaeum erectum contra ipsius potentiam, quod ubi viderit, horret, et audiens timet”. 122. Bellarmino, Disputationes…, cit. [cf. note 118], I, 2201, with a great list. 123. Sozomenus, HE, 5, 19, for the translatio of St Babila, and 7, 10, for those of Paul the Confessor and Meletius of Antioch (PG, 67, 1275 and 1439); Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio IV Contra Julianum, I, 24-5 (PG, 35, 552), for splendid translationes. 124. Bellarmino, Disputationes…, cit. [cf. note 118], I, 2202, citing Ambrosius, Exhortatio…, cit. [cf. note 52], pp. 198-201, and the Epistola to Marcellina (Id., Ad Marcellam…, cit. [cf. note 114]); cf. Paulinus, Vita, 29 (Ambrosius, Tutte le opere […], 24.1: Le fonti latine…, cit. [cf. note 2], pp. 28-85); Anonymous Carolingian, Vita, 61 (ibid., pp. 154- 229). For Gervasius and Protasius, notes 184-185. 125. Bellarmino, Disputationes…, cit. [cf. note 118], 1, 2202; Ambrosius, Exhortatio…, cit. [cf. note 52], 2, 10, pp. 206207: “Haec sanctae viduae negare non potuimus postulanti. Munera itaque salutis accipite, quae nunc sub sacris altaribus reconduntur”. 126. Carthage (13 September 401); Corpus Christianorum, series latina, 49, ed. L. Munier, Tournholt 1974, p. 204. 127. Important contributions in G. Mezzanotte, L’attività dell’Alessi nell’urbanistica milanese del Cinquecento, in Galeazzo Alessi e l’architettura del Cinquecento, Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Genova, 16-20 aprile 1974), Genova 1975, pp. 449-459, and La città rituale. La città e lo stato di Milano nell’età dei Borromeo, Milano 1982. 128. G.B. Sannazzaro, Note sull’immagine agiografica della Milano di S. Carlo Borromeo, in Florence and Milan. Comparisons and Relations, acts of two conferences at Villa I Tatti in 1982-1984, organised by S. Bertelli, N. Rubinstein, C. H. Smyth, 2 vols., Florence 1989, II, pp. 33-48, an excellent article of which the value is in inverse proportion to its length. 120. Baronio, Annales…, cit. [cf. note 48], 1, year 55, XI and XV; Baronio (ibid., 5, year 362, 97) further defends the cult with the invective of Gregory of Nazianzen quoted in note 31 and with passages from Chrysostom, Lib. in S. Babylam (PG, 50, 533ff). 129. F. Roggiani, M. Oliveri, V. Sironi, Le “crocette” nella Milano di S. Carlo, Milano 1984; A. Buratti Mazzotta, Croci stazionali, in Dizionario della Chiesa ambrosiana, 6 vols., Milano 1987-1993, 2, pp. 967-972; M. Di Giovanni, Colonne votive nella devozione popolare a Milano da San Carlo a Federico Borromeo, in F. Della Peruta, R. Leydi, A. Stella (eds.), Milano e il suo territorio, Milano 1985, 2, pp. 631-640. 121. Baronio, Annales…, cit. [cf. note 48], 1, year 60, VI ff: “Illud tunc insuper factum est, ut contra dictos haereticos ip- 130. C. Santoro, Chiese, luoghi pii e popolazione a Milano sulla fine del Cinquecento, in Studi in onore di Carlo Castiglione, prefetto dell’Ambrosiana, Milano 1957, pp. 784-787, for a MS of Giovanni Antonio da Prato of c. 1592-94 which says that Borromeo found 6 ancient crosses in Milan and that he himself erected 19. 131. Milano, Biblioteca Trivulziana, Cod. Trivulziano, 1765; Milano, Archivio Storico Civico [hereafter ASCMi], Località Milanesi, 136; S. Latuada, Descrizione di Milano, 5 vols., Milano 1737-1738, 4, pp. 147-149. 132. Archival sources, note 131. Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 5, pp. 42-44. 133. Forcella, Iscrizioni…, cit. [cf. note 2], 10, p. 32, no. 26. There were at least three others: “Tre ne trovò il Santo allorché vi venne arcivescovo, l’una in Porta Orientale stata eretta dall’arcivescovo Roberto sino dall’anno 1361 come da lapide al piede della medesima e che si è recentemente levata per occasione del corso ivi fatto” (Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 1, p. 210), “l’altra a S. Eufemia ed altra infino a S. Vittore in Porta Romana” (Milano, Archivio di Stato [hence forth ASMi], Culto, p.a., 2097: Memorie appartenenti alle croci e compagnie nella città e diocesi di Milano [saec. XVII], c. 1v). 134. Acta ecclesiae mediolanensis (hereafter AEM), vols. 2-4, a cura di A. Ratti, Milano 1890-1896, 3, 1320-1329; 28 March 1578: “Regole delle compagnie della S. Croce della città e diocesi di Milano: perché tutto lo studio del christiano ha da essere nel signor Giesù Christo crocefisso secondo l’apostolo; et questo si doverebbe sempre portare nel cuore, et in esso specchiarsi, et risguardare per ricevere la salute, come ciò fu figurato nel serpente di metallo da Mosè eretto nel deserto; et per essere la croce la nostra salute, virtù, et gloria”, etc. Borromeo continues by saying that in view of the liberation of the city from the plague of 1576-77, he has put up crosses in many places in the city. 135. A. Valente, La peste del 1576 in Milano. Notizie tratte dalle lettere di un contemporaneo, in “Archivio Storico Lombardo”, 50, 1, 1923, pp. 466 and 473: Papirio Picedi writes to Giambattista Pico on 6 October 1576: “si fanno nelle cantonate delle strade in molti luoghi, pitture con le immagini di ditti santi; et alcuni luoghi si fanno colonne di marmo con croci in cima”; and again on 20 October 1576: “Si piantano adesso altari in molti luoghi della città allo scoperto per dir messa in luogo che dalla finestra si possa se non udire, vedere; e si pigliano quelli siti che possono servire a più persone. In diversi luoghi poi, oltre le pitture che si fanno nelli muri con le immagini di S. Sebastiano e S. Rocco, si piantano colonne grandi c’hanno a starci sempre con le croci in cima”. G.P. Giussani, Vita di San Carlo Borromeo, Roma 1610, 5, 3 (under 1578), pp. 327ff; La città rituale…, cit. [cf. note 127], p. 52 ff; see also Informatione di quel tanto alla giornata li va facendo alla croce del Cordusio di Milano eretta di ordine di S. Carlo da lui benedetta l’anno 1577 a dì 15 giugno (Milano, Biblioteca Ambrosiana [hereafter BAM], Cod. Trotti, no. 72), fol. 1 ff. 136. This account ignores the decree of 1573, and retrodates that of 1579 to 1577. 137. G.B. Sannazzaro, Per San Carlo a Milano; note sulle processioni con particolare riferimento al Duomo in San Carlo Borromeo in Italia. Studi offerti a Carlo Marcora, dottore dell’Ambrosiana, Brindisi 1986, p. 328. 138. Provincial Council V of 1579 (AEM, 2, 603): “Praeparatio locorum curationis publicae […] Cura praestandae et exercendae pietatis in locis publicae curationis ac domibus occlusis. In omni trivio crux loco decenti erigetur, ad quam orantes et precantes spectent. Ibidem, ad episcopi praescriptum altaria extruantur, in quibus missae sacrificium offeratur […] In omni autem domo hospitali publicove tuguriorum loco, tum crux alta curante episcopo bene firmiterque humi suffixa erigetur, loco medio eoque editiori et conspicuo; tum ea in primis ratio habeatur, ut si ibi cappella ex pariete iam non est, ea cum altari ex tabulis sectilibus et asseribus extruatur […]”; the decree concludes with a fascinating description of the chapels that were to be built so as to be visible to all from the cells. The decree was reprinted in Italian in Carlo Borromeo, Della cura della peste instruttione di S. Carlo…, Vicenza 1630. 139. There seems little chance of attributing objects as simple as the first series of Borromean columns plus crosses to any particular architect, particularly since none of them survive in their original form. However, in the case of the great column in the Largo Augusto, later rebuilt and dedicated by Federico Borromeo to St Martinian, we know that in 1580 the confraternity had decided to rebuild it and gave the work to some of the most trusted stone-masons of the Duomo, Francesco Bono, Giovanni Domenico Scala and Michele Scala, working “a laude di Giovanni Battista Lonato”. The attribution by Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 2, pp. 23-25, to Pellegrino is worth investigation since he says that the column was “alzata sopra rilevata base con la scorta dell’architetto Giandomenico Richini, avendone fatto il disegno, e data la norma per gettarne le fondamenta il celebre Pellegrino Pellegrini”; P. Ghinzoni, La colonna di Porta Vittoria, in “Archivio Storico Lombardo”, 5, 1887, pp. 87-98, for the contract of 22 December 1580 according to which G. Domenico and Michele della Scala, who worked elsewhere with Pellegrino, were to provide the column of “maerolo bianco” from Baveno. Unfortunately the relevant documents in ASMi, Amministrazione del Fondo di Religione, 1479, have been both waterlogged and torn. 140. C. Marcora, Il diario di Giambattista Casale (1554-1598), in “Memorie storiche della diocesi di Milano”, 12, 1965, p. 316; later dedicated to St Mauricilius or St Satirus in the Via Falcone (Archival sources cit. note 131; Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 2, pp. 242-243; Forcella, Iscrizioni…, cit. [cf. note 2], p. 70, no. 79; “CRVCIS SIGNVM AB ILLVSTRISSIMO ET REVERENDISSIMO CARDINALE TIT S. PRAXEDIS ARCHIEPISCOPO BENEDICTVM XX SEPTEMBRIS EIVSDEM 115 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org CRVCIS PIETAS CVM VICINIA PESTE SAEVI- KALEN. IVNII MDLXXVII VICINIA PESTE AF- TIENTE EXTRVXIT ANNO MDLXXVI”; FLICTA”, and p. 108, no. 124, for the new inscription of 1690). 141. Porta vercellina; Casale in Marcora, Il diario…, cit. [cf. note 140], p. 359. 142. Casale in ibid., p. 361; Monti includes a rich description of the services, and the tapestries and paintings on the triumphal arch nearby at Santa Maria dei Servi; on the arch were the inscriptions: “CVRRITE FIDELES APERTA EST PORTA SALVTIS”; and “QVI AD ORIENTEM SAL(VT)EM SPECTAT VICVS MAGNOPERE LAETETVR”. According to the Memoriale della croce situata nel compito di porta Orientale di Milano, Milano 1618, pp. 26 ff, the contract for the column was let out to Claudio Vigna in 1580; the column was to be 20 br. (11,8m) long, 21 oncie in diameter with a simple base, capital and pedestal. Martino Bassi inspected it with Carlo Borromeo, then they raised the column; and put the cross on it on 6 February 1584; Urbano Monti (BAM, Cod. P 250 sup., 90r) reports that although Bassi was “di piciol statura”, he dexterously put the cross on his shoulder and shot up the ladder; the scaffolding for erecting it was put up by Marc’Antonio Stoppa. 143. “Già due volte è sta mestiere nominare questa croce per il luoco, onde acciò sia inteso è da sapere, che questa croce è una colonna di marmo piantata nelli compiti o vogliamo dire triccii, o quadricii, sopra la quale è posto un crocifisso di metallo col suo ornamento di sopra che lo difende da nive e pioggia” (Sannazzaro, Per San Carlo a Milano…, cit. [cf. note 137], p. 328). 144. Corso di Porta Romana, Piazza San Nazaro; later dedicated to San Marolo (ASMi, Fondo di Religione, Amministrazione 1476). 145. Later dedicated to Sant’Ausanio (Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 4, p. 405, and the archival sources cited in note 131). 146. Present Corso Garibaldi (ibid., 5, pp. 39-40; archival sources cited in note 131). 147. Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 5, pp. 375-377, says that it bore a crucifix blessed by Carlo which was protected from the weather by a bronze canopy; the canopy cast such heavy shadow on the crucifix that later it was replaced by a statue of St Protasius holding it with his right hand (archival sources cited in note 131). 148. Casale in Marcora, Il diario…, cit. [cf. note 140], p. 314 (Cordusio) and p. 335 (S. Giovanni laterano). According to the elaborate description of Federico Borromeo’s renovation of the Cordusio cross contained in the Informatione, cit. [cf. note 135], dateable to after 1627, fol. 13v, the original inscription ran thus: “HOC CRVCIS VEXILLVM CARDINALIS ILLVSTRISSIMVS ARCHIEPISCOPVS MEDIOLANI CAROLVS BORROMEVS IN VIGILIA CORPORIS CHRISTI BENEDIXIT”; Forcella, Is- crizioni…, cit. [cf. note 2], p. 71, no. 81, gives: “CRVCIS SIGNVM A CAROLO CARDINALE ARCHIEPISCOPO BENEDICTVM V. neither, it seems, referable to a Crucifix; archival sources in note 131; Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 5, pp. 20 ff, and F. Rivola, Vita di Federico Borromeo, Milano 1656, pp. 471 ff and pp. 532-533, supply the verb EREXIT at the end of the original inscription. Latuada says the column bore the “vessillo della santa croce” but that on 28 May 1577 Carlo “benedì il crocefisso” which was then “esposto sopra la colonna”. 149. Later called San Castriziano at San Giovanni in Laterano, Piazza della Scala. The inscription: “TROPHAEVM HOC CAROLO BORROMAEO S.R.E. CARDINALI MEDIOLANI ARCHIEPISCOPO AVCTORE ERECTVM AB EODEM EST RITE BENEDICTVM, SAEVIENTE PESTILENTIA VII. KAL. IVLII ANNO MDLXXVII” (Forcella, Iscrizione…, cit. [cf. note 2], 10, p. 72, no. 82); Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 2, p. 240, speaks of a “crocefisso d’ottone”; archival sources in note 131. 150. 1610, September 25 (ASMi, Culto, p.a., 2097). 151. In 1747 there were 137 crosses in the whole diocesis. The Austrian government started abolishing them and many images in the streets in the 1770’s (ASMi, Culto, p.a., 2097, includes a mass of relevant documents) and in 1786 Leopoldo Pollack oversaw the removal of many of them because they were “imbarazzanti il libero corso delle carrozze” (ASCMi, Località Milanesi, 136). Pollack’s report on the condition of each of them is extremely valuable. 152. F. Buzzi, Il tema della croce nella spiritualità di Carlo Borromeo. Rivisitazione teologica e confronto con la prospettiva luterana, in F. Buzzi, D. Zardin (eds.), Carlo Borromeo e l’opera della “Grande Riforma”. Cultura, religione e arti nel governo nella Milano del pieno Cinquecento, Milano 1997, pp. 47 ff. 153. AEM, 2, 242: “Christianae pietatis ornamentum, in quo populum fidelem gloriari oportet, altare est coelestis holocausti, sacrosancta illa arbor crucis, in qua auctor humanae redemptionis pependit Christus Dominus. Quamobrem ad christianae religionis gloriam insignis admodum fuit ea veterum pietas, ut crucis signum non in templis solum, sed domi forisque in parietibus ac vestibulis, passimque in urbe expressum appareret, tamquam et praeclarum populi Christiani trophaeum, et clarissimum divinae misericordiae monimentum, et sempiternum denique testimonium, quo palam fieret, fideles cum inimicis Crucis Christi, iudaeis, ethnicis, et haereticis nihil habere commune; sed contra eos omnes libere profiteri, quem colunt Dominum Iesum, et hunc crucifixum [I Cor. II, 2]. “Hoc igitur maiorum religioso exemplo, atque instituto, cuius etiam vestigia in hac provincia aliquot locis perspici licet, excitatus episcopus, illud curet, ut hoc sacrosanctae crucis insigne, vel ligno, vel lapide, velubi commode per facultates fieri potest, marmore expressum, in urbe, et dioecesi sua, ubi trivia frequentiora sunt, publice proponatur, atque erigatur; quo crebrius perspecta ea sacrae crucis arbore, fideles sese erigant, tum ad summi mysterii in ea peracti gratam memoriam, tum ad veram illam gloriam, ad quam Christo duce populus fidelis qui populus est acquisitionis [I. Petr. II, 9], contendere debet. Quod praeterea alias sancitum est, id pro sacrosanctae crucis cultu et veneratione servari episcopus iubeat, ut ne ea humi exprimatur, neve sordidis, et aliqua labe inquinatis locis”. 154. The meanings of the word trophaeum include ‘victory’, ‘victory monument’, ‘Christ’s Cross’, to ‘the Body of Christ’ and ‘martyrdom’ and ‘tomb’; O’Connor, Peter in Rome…, cit. [cf. note 25], pp. 97 ff. 155. Cf. the St Simplicianus Description which says that “et la gente senza uscire di casa dalle proprie finestre intraveniva a questo santissimo sacramento, dopo il quale il sacerdote da quell’altare cominciava le littanie et altre preci” (Sannazzaro, Per San Carlo a Milano…, cit. [cf. note 137], p. 328). The cross set up near San Giovanni in Laterano was a “TROPHAEVM”, and that at Cordusio a “CRVCIS SIGNVM”; sources notes 148 and 149. 156. Tanner, Alberigo, Decrees…, cit. [cf. note 70], 2, pp. 734-736. 157. Rufinus, HE, 2, 29 (PL, 21, 537). 158. B. Guenzati, Vita di Federigo Borromeo, BAM, MS G 137 inf., Bk. 5, ch. 7, fols. 289r ff. The Memoriale della croce…, cit. [cf. note 142], of 1618 about the cross at San Babila says much the same, pp. 10 ff; the cross “è l’unico tesoro, nel quale si dee gloriare il christiano, il più nobile memoriale, che Christo ne la lasciasse della nostra Redentione, il più glorioso tesoro trofeo di tutte le vittorie; qual segnale in somma, col quel si fa chiaro, che i fedeli non hanno alcuna cosa di comune con gl’inimici della croce di Christo, che sono i giudei, gli etnici, e gli heretici ma liberamente professano di adorare Christo, e questo crocefisso; come dimostra il santo nel citato decreto [of 1573, of which the wording is adapted here]. E veramente si trovava in quei tempi la città di Milano infettata dalla morsicatura de’serpenti dell’infferno non meno, che altre volte il popolo hebreo da’morsi di quei velenosi serpi, che gli davano indubitata morte. Perciò, siccome à questi quel gran profeta Mosè non hebbe altro rimedio che il rizzare in alto un serpente di bronzo, nel quale che fissava l’occhio, ne riportava la bramante sanità; così à questo male delle anime non giudicò trovarsi medicina più proportionata quell’affettuosisssimo medico, che inalzare sopra alte colonne quel sacrosanto segno, nel quale trovò già rimedio efficacissimo la infermità di tutto il genere humano”. 159. Martiall, A Treatyse…, cit. [cf. note 65], pp. 24 ff; and so in the Acta colloquii Montis Belligartensis…, cit. [cf. note 61], pp. 416-417. 160. S. Perossi, in La Facciata del Duomo di Milano nei disegni d’Archivio della Fabbrica (1583-1737), ed. F. Repishti, Milan 2002, (Supplement to Il Disegno di Architettura, 25-5), p. 33. 161. Conrad Braun in Conradi Bruni iureconsulti…, cit. [cf. note 64], pp. 71-82. Tertullian, Liber contra Iudaeos, 3 (PL, 2, 595 ff); just as those who looked at the serpent were cured of snake-bite, so those who contemplate the cross are cured of the bite of the Devil and his angels. Silvio Antoniano, Dell’educazione cristiana e politica dei figlioli libri tre, ed. L. Pogliani, 3 vols., Torino 1926, pp. 139-140; II, 41; the cross must be in all homes; “per questi riflessi vi ha l’antica costumanza che in luogo eminente della chiese si ponga il vessillo della santa croce, sotto la quale noi militiamo; acciochè nella stessa guisa che i figliuoli di Israele nel deserto, guardando il serpente di bronzo posto da Mosè per segno, erano risanati dalle punture dei velenosi serpenti; così noi fissando gli occhi in Gesù Cristo, siamo risanati dal veleno del peccato; e per questo ancora si sogliono innalzare nelle publiche vie delle croci, acciò quelli che vanno per il loro viaggio, essendo stati bene educati da fanciulli ad onorare il sano segno della croce, si armino con la memoria della passione di Gesù Cristo contro i pericoli imminenti, siccome la santa chiesa ci insegna a pregarne Iddio, con quella breve orazione ‘Per signum crucis de inimicis nostris libera nos, Deus noster’ ”. 162. Pietro Galesini, Ordo dedicationis obelisci quem S.D.N. Sixtus V pont. max. in foro vaticano ad limina apostolorum erexit…, Roma 1586; the inscriptions read; “Gulielmi Blanci Iun Albiensis I.C. hexasticum in obeliscum; Aenea serpentis Moses simulachra sacerdos / Extulit, aegrotis ut medicina foret. / Nunc alter Moses obelisci in vertice Sixtus / erigit aegrotis aenea signa crucis. / Vos, o Romani, sustollite ad aethera vultus / A cruce nam vobis vestra petenda salus”. 163. G.P. Puricelli, Ambrosianae Mediolani basilicae ac monasterii […] monumenta, I, Milano 1645, pp. 318 ff, sub anno 1002. The visitatio of 1566 is in Milano, Archivio storico diocesano [hereafter ASDMi], Sez. 10, S. Ambrogio, vol. 45, fol. 47v: “E contra hoc altare [the altar, removed by Borromeo, which was next to the column with the cross] adest quidam serpens aeneus in sumitate cuiusdam columnae marmoreae impositus qui vulgo habetur pro illomet quem Moises in diserto ex praecepito Dei pro epidemia sedanda fabricare fecit. Est quaedam superstitio ibi mulierum pro infantibus merito morbio vermium laborantibus [sic]”. He recommended no action and passed on to another item. Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 4, pp. 273-275; Ferrario, Monumenti sacri…, cit. [cf. note 3], pp. 90-94; ASDMi, Sez. 10, S. Ambrogio, vol. 21, fasc. 66 is a small treatise of 1680 by Giuseppe Vismara, a canon of San Giorgio in Palazzo (bound at the end of the volume), intended to demonstrate that the original serpent and column were totally destroyed and in any case did not resemble that now in Sant’Ambrogio (there is an illustration of the original serpent and column). 164. P.P. Bosca, De serpente aeneo basilicae ambrosianae Mediolani micrologus, Milano 1675, a massively documented account. 165. For example, the edict of Theodosius II (427) in the Cod. Iustinianus: “Cum sit nobis cura diligens per omnia superni numinis religionem tueri, signum Salva- 116 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org toris Christi nemini licere vel in solo, vel in silice, vel in marmoribus humi positis insculpere vel pingere, sed quodcunque reperitur tolli iubemus gravissima poena multando eos qui contrarium statutis nostris tentaverint, imperamus” (Corpus iuris civilis, ed. P. Krüger, Berlin 1924, 2, I, 8, p. 61); see also the Council in Trullo, cited in note 104. Carlo Borromeo, Instructionum fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae libri II Caroli Borromei (1577), eds. M. Marinelli with F. Adorni, Città del Vaticano 2000, 1, 17, pp. 73 and 131. So too at the councils of Florence (1517 and 1573) and Salerno (1596) in Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum…, cit. [cf. note 32], 35, 234, 729-730 and 974. Cf. Greutzer, De cruce…, cit. [cf. note 52], Bk. 2, ch. 47, cites a famous story in Paulus Diaconus; I quote from L’Historie di Paolo Diacono seguenti a quelle d’Eutropio de i fatti de’Romani imperatori nuovamente tradotte di latino in italiano, Venezia 1548, trans. Michael Tramezzino, lib. 17, fol. 71r: “Un giorno Tiberio [emperor from 571 AD] passeggiando per il palaggio, vidde nel solo dilla casa una tavola di marmo, dove era scolpita la croce del Signore Iesu Christo, e disse ‘Noi ci doviamo con la croce del nostro Signore, signar la fronte, e il petto, e ecco che noi la calpestamo co piedi’; e incontenente la fece levare di quivi, e cavata via quella tavola, e drizzata, ne trovano sotto l’altra, che haveva il medesimo segno della croce, e fece anchor levar questa altra qual toltavia, trovò la terza, e per suo commandamento fu anchora questa levata, ove trovo un gran tesoro, ch’era di più di milli centinara d’oro, e levatolo di qui, il parti tra i poveri piu abbondantemente, che non haveva fatto prima”. 166. The Crucifix, a gift of Filippo Maria Visconti, was already in the Duomo by 1518 (Annali della Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano, 6 vols, 1877-1885, 3, 1880, p. 196); following a report by Francesco Castelli (1563) it had evidently been rebuilt by Vincenzo Seregni in 1566 (letter of 17 September 1566, in BAM, Cod. F 108 inf., fol. 94); in 1576 the Apostolic Visitor, Girolamo Ragazzoni, announced that it was too small and practically invisible and that “Che si levi il crucifisso, e se ne faccia uno più grande e si ponga all’ingresso del choro superiore” (ASDMi, Metropolitana 72, “Decreta ab illustrissimo et reverendissimo domino visitatore apostolico anno 1576”, no. 2); contracts were drawn up in 1580 and 1581 for a new one, designed by Pellegrino, to be put over the entrance to the choir (Annali della Fabbrica del Duomo…, cit., 4, 1881, pp. 173 and 184). Tanner, Alberigo, Decrees…, cit. [cf. note 70], 2, p. 732, for the decree of Session 12 of 17 September 1562 on the Mass and the Crucifixion. 167. The only indication in the text of a date is the reference to Carlo Borromeo as San Carlo, canonised in 1610. 168. A statue of St Peter was set on Trajan’s column in 1587, of St Paul on the Antonine column in 1588 (G.G. Martinez, Silla Longhi e il restauro della Colonna antonina, in M. Fagiolo (ed.), Roma e l’antico nell’arte e nella cultura del Cinquecento, Roma 1985, pp. 179-211). Cf. Baronio, Annales…, cit. [cf. note 48], 2, year 176, XXVIII, for the statue of Paul: “tamen ut christianae fidei (utcumque expressum sit) praeclarissimum monumentum, superstitione vero gentilitia obscuratam, barbarico olim furore deorsum incensam, ac desuper fulmine tactam”. 169. Not traced. 170. The drawings present the machinery in cut-away below the road surface, but it is difficult to see how it matches the text in detail; the ropes and gears seem particularly incoherent. 171. Recent research is now filling-out Mazenta’s personality; V. Milano, I fratelli Mazenta negli episcopati di Gaspare Visconti e Federico Borromeo, in “Arte Lombarda”, 131, 2001, pp. 67-72; G. Benati, A.M. Roda, “De sacrae aedis fronte”. L’iconografia della facciata, in …E il Duomo toccò il cielo. I disegni per il completamento della facciata e l’invenzione della guglia maggiore tra conformità gotica e razionalismo matematico 1733-1815, exhibition catalogue (Milano, 24 October 2003-1 February 2004), eds. E. Brivio, F. Repishti, Milano 2003, p. 56 and note 54. 172. See note 70. 173. Borromeo, Instructionum…, cit. [cf. note 165], 1, 16. 174. M. Caperna, La basilica di Santa Prassede. Il significato della vicenda architettonica, Roma 1999, p. 88; Borromeo kept the great list of relics from the time of Paschal I (817-824) in Santa Prassede (U. Nilgen, Die grosse Reliquieninschrift von S. Prassede. Ein quellenkritische Untersuchung zur Zeno Kappelle, in “Römische Quartalschrift”, 69, 1974, pp. 7-29). 175. 4th Provincial Council of May 1576 (AEM, 2, 288ff): see also the 1st Provincial Council (AEM, 2, 38) of 1565 and the 6th Council (AEM, 2, 732) of 1582 for regulations about not exporting relics without the Pope’s authority. 176. P.G. Longo, Carlo Borromeo; un vescovo e il suo popolo, in J. Delumeau (dir.), F. Bolgiani (Italian ed.), Storia vissuta del popolo cristiano, Torino 1979, pp. 491-513. 177. Paolo Morigia, Il Duomo di Milano, Milano 1597, ch. 19; S. Vitale, Teatro trionfale di Milano, Milano 1644, fol. 11; essential are A. Tamborini, Un’insigne reliquia della Passione nel Duomo di Milano, Milano 1933; G.B. Corno, Il sacro chiodo tesoro del Duomo di Milano, Milano 1647, p. 127, for the tradition that Ambrose himself had found the nail in Rome, an episode included in the cycle of frescoes in the cloister of San Pietro Celestino in Milan (Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 1, pp. 197-201; S. Della Torre in Dizionario della Chiesa ambrosiana, cit. [cf. note 129], 5, p. 2794). Borromeo was particularly interested in these frescoes as evidence of Ambrose’s appearance (see the essays in Ambrogio. L’immagine e il volto. Arte dal XIV al XVII secolo, exhibition catalogue [Milano, 1998], Venezia 1998); on 18 July 1565 Tullio Albonese reported to him that they were damaged and that they were trying to find ways of funding their restoration (BAM, Cod. 105 inf., fol. 461r); and in 1569 we find Pellegrino objecting strongly to the fact that he had been instructed to study the paintings in order to copy motifs from them for his designs for the choir in the Duomo (Annali della Fabbrica del Duomo…, cit. [cf. note 166], 4, 1881, pp. 95-96). Also F. Ruggeri, Il Santo Chiodo venerato nel Duomo di Milano, 2nd ed., Milano 1989. 178. Annali della Fabbrica del Duomo…, cit. [cf. note 166], 1, 1877, p. 24 (18 March 1389); Stefano Dolcino, Nuptiae illustrissimi ducis Mediolani, Milano 1489, a4. 179. Giussani, Vita di San Carlo…, cit. [cf. note 135], Book 4, for the plague in general; 4, 4, pp. 269D ff, for the processions with the Holy Nail. 180. Urbano Monti, BAM, Cod. P 248 sup., fol. 99r ff; on 104r he relates at length the story of the nail; Theodosius gave it to Ambrose after he found it in a shop in Rome along with part of the brazen serpent which Ambrose then set up in Sant’Ambrogio; the nail was first in San Salvador. Monti records the annual processions in his diaries thereafter. In Cod. P 249 sup., 52v he describes how the Nail was kept in the Duomo “nel riformato sole con raggi belissimi sopra l’altar magiore nel più alto dela cuba sopra detto altare, collocatolo nel mezzo di quella croce d’argento che si vede nel mezo del Iesus o sole pur coperto da una ferradina di ferro argentato molto artificiosamente”. Similarly G.A. Chozi records the processions each year in his diary (C.E.V., Diario di un popolano milanese durante la peste del 1576, in “Archivio Storico Lombardo”, 1, 2 1877, pp. 132 ff) and remarks (p. 139) that “Il santisimo chiodo sie in cima de la giesia dela madona del Dom, sie la giesa magior de Milan; se el fuse qualche person che non savesen donde el fuse il sante chiodo guardate che al ghè una chrose e un agnus e altre chos de or, e la sie il santisimo chiodo del nostro signor Gesù Christo, e onia vernardi sie la perdonanca e se aquista grande indulgentia e le persone ane da oprar el ben fa, che il signor Idio li aiutarà”. 181. Giussani, Vita di San Carlo…, cit. [cf. note 135], 4, 12, pp. 306 ff. 182. Carlo Bascapé, Vita e opere di Carlo Cardinale di S. Prassede, arcivescovo di Milano, ed. A. Majo, Milano 1983 (=De Vita e rebus gestis Caroli Card. S. Praxedis archiepiscopi Mediolani, Ingolstadt 1592), 4, 10, pp. 403 ff. I have not been able to establish whether this is true; Bascapé may merely be attributing Constantinian practice to Carlo Borromeo. 183. Ambrose as model for Borromeo; the exceptional study is A. Dallaj, Carlo Borromeo e il tema iconografico dei santi arcivescovi milanesi, in S. Boesch Sajano, L. Sebastiani (eds.), Culto dei santi, istituzioni e classi sociali in età preindustriale, L’Aquila-Roma 1984, pp. 651-680; also various essays in La città e la sua memoria. Milano e la tradizione di Sant’Ambrogio, Milano 1977; Ambrogio. L’immagine e il volto…, cit. [cf. note 177]. 184. E. Dassmann, Ambrosius und die Märtyrer, in “Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum”, 18, 1975, pp. 49-68; B. Brenk, Il culto delle reliquie e la politica urbanistico-architettonica di Milano ai tempi del vescovo Ambrosio, in 387 d.c. Ambrogio e Agostino. Le sorgenti dell’Europa, Exhibition Catalogue (Milano, 2003-2004), ed. P. Pasini, Milano 2003, pp. 56-60; S. Lusuardi Siena, Ambrogio, il costruttore sapiente, in La città e la sua memoria…, cit. [cf. note 183], pp. 34- 35; N.B. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan. Church and court in a Christian capital, Berkeley (Cal.) 1994, pp. 209 ff (Gervasius and Protasius), 226 ff, 235 ff, 346 ff; C. Pasini, Ambrogio di Milano. Azione e pensiero di un vescovo, 2nd ed., Cisinello Balsamo 1996, pp. 119 ff. 185. See the Hymn to Victor, Nabor and Felix (Ambrosius, Tutte le opere di Sant’Ambrogio, Opera Omnia di Sant’Ambrogio, 22: Inni, iscrizioni, frammenti, eds. G. Banterle, G. Biffi, I. Biffi, L. Migliavacca, Milano-Roma 1994, pp. 77-79 and 81-85, for Protasius and Gervasius. Ambrosius, Ad Marcellam epist. 77, cit. [cf. note 114]; Paulinus, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 14; Anonymous Carolingian, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 23-24; Augustine, Confessiones, 9, 7, (PL, 32, 770), and Civ., 22, 8, 2 (PL, 41, 761); but also in Sermo 318, 1, Sermo 286, 5-4; De cura mortuorum 21, Retractationes 1, 13,7 (PL, 32, 604). M.E. Colombo, B. Howes, La basilica martyrum, in La città e la sua memoria…, cit. [cf. note 183], pp. 84-88; V. Zangara, L’‘inventio’ dei corpi martiri Gervaso e Protaso. Testimonianze di Agostino su un fenomeno di religiosità popolare, in “Augustinianum”, 21, 1981, pp. 119-133; M. Caltabiano, Ambrogio, Agostino e gli scritti sui martiri, in Nec timeo mori. Atti del congresso internazionale di studi ambrosiani nel XVI centenario della morte di sant’Ambrogio. Milano 4-11 aprile 1997, eds. L.F. Pizzolato and M. Rizzi, Milano 1998, pp. 585-594; F.S. Barcellona, L’invenzione delle reliquie dei martiri Protasio e Gervasio, in 387 d.c. Ambrogio e Agostino…, cit. [cf. note 184], pp. 211-215. 186. Brenk, Il culto delle reliquie…, cit. [cf. note 184]; if the first recorded translatio in the West was that of Gervasius and Protasius in 386, experts dispute the authenticity of the first recorded inventio of a saint mentioned in a panegyric of Gregory Nazianzen in 397 to the martyr Cyprian of Antioch; Delehaye, Les origines du culte…, cit. [cf. note 27], pp. 74-75. On the development of the phenomenon: M. Heinzelmann, Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des Reliquienkultes, Tournhout, 1979 (Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 33). J.M. McCulloh, The Cult of Relics in the Letters and ‘Dialogues’ of Pope Gregory the Great, in “Traditio”, 32, 1976, pp. 145-184. 187. C. Bonetti, La basilica apostolorum, in La città e la sua memoria…, cit. [cf. note 183], pp. 70-73; S. Lusuardi Siena, La Basilica apostolorum, in Milano capitale dell’impero romano, 286-402 d.C., Milano 1990, pp. 119-120. Experts disagree about whether the relics of the apostles were those of Peter and Paul or of Andrew, John and Thomas. 188. Ambrosius, Exhortatio Virginitatis, 1, 1 and 2, in Id. Tutte le opere di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit. [cf. note 52], pp. 198201; L’Exhortatio virginitatis, in La presenza di sant’Ambrogio a Firenze. Convegno di studi ambrosiani. Firenze 9 marzo 1994, Firenze 1994, pp. 7-21; La mensa di Ambrogio nell’altare della basilica dei Santi 117 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org Apostoli e Nazaro Maggiore, Milano 1994. R. Budriesi, Il Battistero e le prime fasi del complesso, in R. Terra (ed.), La Cattedrale di San Pietro in Bologna, Bologna 1997, pp. 24 ff. 189. PL, 13, 549; reprinted in P. Puccinelli, Zodiaco della chiesa milanese. Vita di S. Simpliciano, Milano 1650, pp. 68-70 (for whom see S. Schenone, La vita e le opere di Placido Puccinelli: cenni per una biografia, in “Archivio Storico Lombardo”, 114, 1988, pp. 319-334); G. Pini, I Santi Martiri Sisinio, Martirio ed Alessandro e il loro culto a Milano, Milano 1897, passim, but esp. pp. 87 ff for their miraculous appearance as doves at the battle of Legnano; E. Menestò, Le lettere di S. Vigilio, in I Martiri della val di Non e le reazione pagana alla fine del IV secolo, Proceedings of the Conference (Trento, 1984), eds. A. Quacquarelli and I. Rogger, Trento 1985, pp. 151-170. Vigilius’s letter was certainly known in the Cinquecento, since it was published by Luigi Lippomano, Sanctorum priscorum patrum vitae, II, Venezia 1553, fols. 151v-152r, then again by Laurentius Surius, Historiae seu vitae sanctorum, Coloniae Agrippinae 1572, 3, fols. 424-425, whence Baronio and others. Detailed discussion by G. Spinelli, Per la storia del culto di sant’Alessandro di Bergamo; la testimonianza delle più antiche fonti liturgiche, in Bergamo e S. Alessandro. Storia, culto, luoghi, ed. L. Pagani, Bergamo 1999, pp. 37 ff. 190. M.A. Di Girolamo, B. Howes, La basilica virginum, in La città e la sua memoria…, cit. [cf. note 183], pp. 104-108; S. Lusuardi Siena, Basilica Virginum, in Milano capitale dell’impero romano…, cit. [cf. note 187], pp. 135-137, argues that San Simpliciano probably was founded by Ambrose c. 393 and finished by Simplicianus c. 400, because Paulinus, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 52, says that the relics of Sisinius, Martirius and Alexander were put in the basilica after Ambrose’s death but while Simplicianus was still alive. Also the wonderful articles by E. Arslan, Osservazioni preliminari sulla chiesa di S. Simpliciano a Milano, in “Archivio Storico Lombardo”, 1, 1945-47, pp. 5-32 (for the problem of the identification of the present church of San Simpliciano with the church founded and dedicated to the Virgin by Ambrose) and C. Baroni, San Simpliciano abbazia benedettina, in “Archivio Storico Lombardo”, 61, 1934, pp. 1-121; Le chiese di Milano, ed. M.T. Fiorio, Milano 1985, pp. 125 ff. 191. See especially Bascapé, Vita e opere…, cit. [cf. note 182], 3, 6, pp. 301311; 5, 6, pp. 466-473; 6, 1, pp. 551-553, 6, 3, pp. 562-565; S.C. Pellegrini, Amore di San Carlo ai santi milanesi e il trasporto di sante reliquie, in S. Carlo Borromeo nel terzo centenario della canonizzazione 16101910, Milano 1910, pp. 434-438; G. Ronchi, Reliquie, in Dizionario della chiesa ambrosiana, cit. [cf. note 129], 5, pp. 3017-3024. 192. Full account in Puccinelli, Zodiaco…, cit. [cf. note 189], pp. 36 ff; the story of all stages of the recognitio, translatio etc. is retold in L. Crivelli, Con San Carlo per le vie di Milano, Milano 1982. Baroni, San Simpliciano…, cit. [cf. note 190], pp. 101 ff, for the church in the 1570’s. 193. The 6th Provincial Council started on 10 May 1582 (AEM, 2, 729-780). 194. Fontana wanted to translate Simplicianus on 13 April 1581, to coincide with the 8th Diocesan Synod, held between 12-14 April, but the procession could not be arranged for that date, so instead they had to settle for the more modest translation of the relics of Sts Marinus, Leo and bishop Arsacius, found in Santo Stefano (AEM, II, 975ff). St Simplicianus’s day is now 14 August, but was originally the day of his depositio, 15 August. 195. According to Puccinelli, Zodiaco…, cit. [cf. note 189], pp. 39 and 84, the bishops who came included Ippolito Rossi (Pavia), Paleotti (Bologna), Cesare Gambara (Tortona), Niccolò Sfrondato (Cremona; the future Gregory XIV), Girolamo Ragazzoni, (Bergamo, apostolic visitor to Milan), Giovanni Delfino (Brescia), Domenico della Rovere (Asti), Guarnero Trotti o Guasco (Alessandria), Vincenzo Marini (Alba), Francesco Galbiati (Ventimiglia), Alessandro de Andreis (Casale Monferrato). Others were invited but could not come for various reasons: Ludovico Taverna (Lodi; nuntio in Spain); Francesco Bossi (apostolic visitor in Genoa); Giovanni Francesco Bonomi (Vercelli; nuntio in Germany), etc.; others listed in AEM. 196. A. Sala, Documenti circa la vita e le gesta di San Carlo Borromeo, Milano 1861, 3, p. 735. 197. Giussani, Vita di San Carlo…, cit. [cf. note 135], 6, 14, p. 428D. 198. BAM, Cod. F 53 bis inf, fols. 297r300v, which is incomplete; another – complete – copy on fols. 354r-359r; published by F. Molinari, Il Card. Filippo Sega, Vescovo di Piacenza e San Carlo Borromeo (1574-1584), in “Archivio Ambrosiano, XIX. Ricerche storiche sulla Chiesa Ambrosiana”, 1976, pp. 194 f; Molinari does not mention the fact that there are schematic drawings of the choirs of the Duomo, San Simpliciano and the Ospedale maggiore on fols. 361v-364r, which deserve study. cianum, patrem in accipienda gratia tunc episcopi Ambrosii, et quem vere ut patrem diligebat” (ibid., 8, 2); all the references by Augustine to Ambrose are conveniently collected in Le fonti latine su Sant’Ambrogio…, cit. [cf. note 2], pp. 8699; Council of Carthage, session of 13 August 397 (Munier, Corpus Christianorum…, cit. [cf. note 126], p. 186). Pasini, Ambrogio di Milano…, cit. [cf. note 184], pp. 27-39, for Simplicianus and Ambrose. 223. Ibid., pp. 57-58. 224. Ibid., p. 167. 204. Puccinelli, Zodiaco…, cit. [cf. note 189]. 225. L. von Pastor, Storia de Papi, Roma 1925, IX, pp. 803 ff; Giovanni Bernardino Rastelli, Descrittione della pompa e del apparato fatto in Roma per la translatione del corpo di S. Gregorio Nazianzeno…, Perugia 1580; the translatio involved a vast procession but no temporary architecture to judge from Rastelli’s description, so it hardly forms a precedent in that respect for the great translatio of St Simplicianus; Acta sanctorum Maii tomus secundus, eds. G. Henschen and D. Papebroch, Antwerp 1680, pp. 456 ff (9 May). R. Krautheimer, A Christian Triumph in 1597, in Essays in the History of Art presented to Rudolf Wittkower, eds. D. Fraser, H. Hibbard, M. J. Lewine, London 1967, pp. 174-178, for the procession for the relics of Domitilla, Nereus and Achilleus from San Adriano to Santi Nereo e Achilleo on 11 maggio 1597; they passed under the arches of Septimius Severus, Titus and Constantine, but there was also a series of temporary arches with a number of inscriptions. Baronio – who was certainly well informed about the St Simplicianus procession – was presumably the organiser of that of Nereus and Achilleus. 205. See note 31. 206. See note 27. 207. For the topos of the triumph of Christianity over paganism: G. Labrot, Roma ‘caput mundi’. L’immagine barocca della città santa 1534-1677, Napoli 1997, pp. 257296, esp. p. 281; F. Repishti, R.V. Schofield, Architettura e Controriforma. I dibattiti per la facciata del Duomo di Milano 1582-1682, Milano 2004, pp. 178 ff. 208. In 2 Corinth. Hom. 26 (PG, 61, 581); also cited by Baronio, Annales…, cit. [cf. note 48], 2, year 237, III. 209. Graecarum affectionum curatio (PG, 83, 1031). 210. Augustine, Civ., 22, 10 (PL, 41, 772). 211. See note 119. 212. Lippomano, Confirmatione…, cit. [cf. note 111], cc. 180r ff; for the copy in Borromeo’s library A. Saba, La Biblioteca di S. Carlo Borromeo, Firenze 1936, p. 6. 213. Hefele, Leclercq, Histoire…, cit. [cf. note 32], 4, 2, pp. 1056-1060; Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum…, cit. [cf. note 32], 12, 566. 214. Pasini, Ambrogio di Milano…, cit. [cf. note 184], p. 203 215. Ambrosius, Tutte le opere di Sant’Ambrogio. 21: Discorsi…, cit. [cf. note 114], pp. 337 ff; McLynn, Ambrose of Milan…, cit. [cf. note 184] pp. 124 ff; Pasini, Ambrogio di Milano…, cit. [cf. note 184], pp. 75 ff. 200. AEM, 3, 691-710; reprinted in Crivelli, Con San Carlo…, cit. [cf. note 192]; BAM, Cod. R 125, sup, fols. 152r164v, for another copy. 216. Hefele, Leclercq, Histoire…, cit. [cf. note 32], I, pp. 737-823. 202. V. Grossi, Sant’Ambrogio e Sant’Agostino. Per una rilettura dei loro rapporti, in Nec timeo mori…, cit. [cf. note 185], pp. 405-462; Augustine, Confessiones, 5, 13,14; 6, 3; 9, 5-6, for the baptism of Augustine by Ambrose; Augustine says of Simplicianus: “Perrexi ergo ad Simpli- 222. Augustine, Civ., 22, 8 (PL, 41, 760771); Delehaye, Les origines du culte…, cit. [cf. note 27], pp. 122-123. 203. Augustine, Confessiones, 8, 2, 4-5. 199. Carlo Borromeo, Memoriale ai Milanesi di Carlo Borromeo, eds. G. Testori e G.P. Bellini, Milano 1965; AEM 3, 710824. 201. All the Milanese saints mentioned in the following paragraphs are copiously documented in the Dizionario della Chiesa ambrosiana, cit. [cf. note 129], and the Dizionario dei santi della Chiesa di Milano, ed. C. Pasini, Milano 1995. I have therefore only added notes here and there to amplify the information contained in these works. (Le Liber Pontificalis. Texte, introduction et commentaire par L. Duchesne, 2 vols., Paris 1886-1892 [Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, ser. 2], I, part 1, p. 67). 217. Constantinople III: Tanner, Alberigo, Decrees….cit. [cf. note 70], I, pp. 124 ff. 218. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum…, cit. [cf. note 32], 3, 689-692; Conc. Mediolanense 390, sub Siricio with the condemnation of Giovinianus. 219. Tanner, Alberigo, Decrees…, cit. [cf. note 70], I, pp. 40 ff. 220. Refers to the contribution of Mansueto to the preparations for the Ecumenical Council of 680-681 held at Constantinople; Tanner, Alberigo, Decrees…, cit. [cf. note 70], pp. 123 ff. 221. Derived from the Liber Pontificalis 226. The letter of 796 describes the transference of the relics from Sardinia to Pavia; F. Savio (ed.), Gli antichi vescovi d’Italia dalle origini al 1300 descritti per regioni. La Lombardia. Parte 1: Milano, Firenze 1913, p. 307; it reemerges in Baronio, Annales…, cit. [cf. note 48], and was presumably taken by him from Agostino Fivizanio, Vita S. Augustini episcopi, Rome 1587, which includes, in an appendix, the ‘De translatione corporis B. Augustini […] Petri Oldradi, archiepiscopi Mediolanensis ad Carolum Magnum epistola’. 227. The matter is complicated, but Materno, about whom practically nothing is known, seems to have transferred St Victor along with Sts Nabor and Felix from Lodi to San Vittore in Ciel D’Oro where Materno is represented in the celebrated mosaic between the latter two saints; later St Victor was taken to the homonimous church; see, most recently: M. Raspe, “Un naturale ritratto di Santo Ambrogio”: Carlo Borromeo und das Mosaikportrait in S. Vittore in Ciel d’Oro zu Mailand, in Bild- und Formensprache der spätantiken Kunst: Hugo Brandenburg zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. M. Jordan-Ruwe and U. Real, Münster 1994 (Archäologisches Seminar der Universität Münster), pp. 203-215 228. See Crivelli, Con S. Carlo…, cit. [cf. note 192]. The three copies are: (i) Archivio of San Simpliciano, written by the prior of San Simpliciano, Ludovico Chizzuola, dedicated to Paleotti and intended for publication; (ii) ASDMi, Sez. 118 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org X, Visite, S. Simpliciano, vol. 3, the copy made for Carlo Borromeo (therefore before 1584) and partially transcribed by Sannazzaro, Per San Carlo a Milano…, cit. [cf. note 137], pp. 425-433 (this is the version which I have used); (iii) BAM, Cod. N 229 sup., which is not dated. I have not been able to consult the version in San Simpliciano. Here and there when citing the inscriptions in the notes that follow I have supplied words missing from the Diocesan copy from the Ambrosian copy, but have left trivial variant readings untouched. The three copies start by saying that the author has divided his material into four parts: (i) the recognition of the relics; (ii) the procession and its route; (iii) the order of the procession and the hierarchies observed in it; (iv) “li distici così greci, come latini, le sentenza, l’antifoni et l’altre compositioni tanto in versi, quanto in prosa, che furono fatte”. The fourth section is missing from the Diocesan and Ambrosian copies; Puccinelli, Zodiaco…, cit. [cf. note 189], includes Borromeo’s pastoral letter (pp. 49-67), the permission from Gregory XIII of 16 May 1581 to celebrate the three martyrs on the last Sunday in May (p. 77); and a reduced version of the MSS descriptions of the St Simplicianus celebrations (pp. 81 ff); he includes the Latin inscriptions and verses in Greek composed by Tito Prospero Martinengo which are omitted by the Diocesan and Ambrosian copies, but he is not very interested in architecture and described it very summarily. Sanazzaro, conversely, transcribes much of the Description of the procession from the Diocesan copy, particularly that related to architecture, but omits all the inscriptions. 229. For Monti’s description see note 180; Casale, in Marcora, Il diario…, cit. [cf. note 140], pp. 354-355. Other accounts in Bascapé, Vita e opere…, cit. [cf. note 182], 6, 2, pp. 557-561; Giovanni Francesco Besozzi, Vita del beato Carlo Borromeo, Milano 1601, pp. 57ff; Giussani, Vita di San Carlo…, cit. [cf. note 135], 6, 14. COELESTIVM BENEFICIORVM NON IMME- P[ORTA]S EXTRA VRBEM DIOECESIS INTVS SIGNA PORTIS ORDINAVIT COMITESQVE MOR”. ET CAPITANEOS VBIQVE CONSTITVIT”; RITIS” and “CIVITAS MEDIOLANENSIVM Near the cross at San Babila: “GAVDEAT NVNC ORIENTALIS VICVS QVI IN DEVOTISSIMA SANCTORVM MEDIOLANENSIVM ARCHIEPISCOPORVM SIMPLICIANI GERVNTII BENIGNI ANTONINI ET AMPELLII NEC NON ET BEATORVM MARTIRVM SISINII MARTIRII ET ALEXANDRI [TRANSLATIONE] DECORATVR”. 232. “TE DEVM LAVDAMVS. TE DEVM CONFITEMVR” and “SIMPLICIANVS AVGVSTINO HABITVM DAT ET CINGVLVM D. AMBROSIVS IN SERMONE DE BAPTISMO AVG[VSTINI] PARTE III SERM LXXXXIIII”. That Ambrose or Augustine invented the hymns is apocryphal; the nucleus of the story is first found in Hinkmar of Rheims (d. 882; De Praedestinatione, PL, 125, 290), then c. 1100 in the Historia mediolanensis, of Landolfo senior (eds. L. C. Bethmann and W. Wattenbach in Monumenta Germaniae Historica - Scriptores, Hannover 1848, VIII, pp. 41-42), and the Speculum ecclesiae of Onorio of Autun (PL, 172, 995). The story is elaborated in the Legenda aurea; at the Baptism, “Tunc, sicut fertur, Ambrosius: ‘Te Deum laudamus’, inquit, et Augustinus: ‘Te dominum confitemur’, respondit et sic tunc ipsi duo hunc hymnum alternatim composuerunt et usque in finem decantaverunt, sicut etiam testatur Honorius in libro suo, qui dicitur Speculum ecclesiae. In aliquibus autem libris antiquis titulus talis praeponitur; canticum ab Ambrosio et Augustino compilatum” (Jacobi a Voragine…, cit. [cf. note 53], no. 124, p. 533; Jacques de Voragine…, cit. [cf. note 53], ch. 120, 708, pp. 681ff); for the whole episode see the essays in Agostino a Milano: il battesimo. Agostino nelle terre di Ambrogio (22-24 aprile 1987), Palermo 1988 (Augustiniana. Testi e Studi, 3), pp. 85-89; H. Leclercq, Te Deum, in Dictionnaire…, cit. [cf. note 7], Paris 1953, 15, 2, p. 2030; recently the hymn of Augustine has been attributed to Niceta of Remesiana, c. 400 (M.G. Mara in Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, directed by A. Di Bernardino, Casale Monferrato 1983, II, 3360). Agapetus II (Pope from 10 May 946 to December 955). Latuada, Descrizione…, cit. [cf. note 131], 1, pp. 157-162; G.P. Bognetti, Arimannie nella città di Milano, in “Rendiconti del Reale Istituto lombardo di scienza e lettere”, 72, 11, 19381939, p. 205; Id., Arimannie nella città di Milano, in Id., L’età longobarda, 4 vols., Milano 1966, I, pp. 41 ff; the wording of the San Simpliciano inscription evidently owes something to the document quoted by Bognetti on p. 52; “imperiali auctoritate signa portarum civitatis ordinans, ipsarum quoque plebium ac communitatum capitaneos instituebat”. 237. “S. SIMPLICIANVS CATANEVS MEDIOLANENSIS ARCHIEPISCOPVS RELIGIONIS DOCTRINAE SVMMARVMQVE VIRTVTVM CLARITATE ILLVSTRIS MVLTIS ORBIS PARRHETOREM DISERTISSIMVM APVD ROMANOS GRATIA FLORENTEM A FIDE CHRISTIANA ABHORENTEM ECCLESIAE SANCTAE ADIVNXIT ALIOS ABERRANTES IN VIA REVOCAVIT, AVRELIVM AVGVSTINVM MANICHEAE HAERESIS ERRORIBVS IMPLICATVM AD VERITATIS LVCEM PERDVXIT, PHILOSOFORVM ARGVTIAS DOCTRINAE CHRISTIANAE REPVGNANTES CONSTANTI SALVTARIS SAPIENTIAE ROBORE CONFREGIT, CARTHAGINENSIVM PATRVM DECRETA CONSTITVIT GAVDENTIVM NOVARIAE EPISCOPVM CONSECRAVIT. ECCLESIAM MEDIOLANENSEM PRECLARVS MORVM MAGISTER EGREGIVS SACRARVM LITTERARVM DOCTOR ARCHIEPISCOPVS CVNCTIS RIAVXIT”. 238. “S. AMBROSIVS ROMANVS ECCLESIAE CATHOLICAE DOCTOR FIDEI PROPVGNATOR DISCIPLINAE SANCTAE CVLTOR LIBERTATIS ECCLESIAE DEFENSOR ECCLESIAE SIBI COMMESSAE DEFENSOR VIGILANTISSIMVS EGENTIVM VIDVARVM PVPILLORVM PARENS AC TVTOR CHARITATIS PLENVS DOCTRINAE VIGILANTIAE RELIGIONIS PIETATIS IVSTITIAE TEMPERANTIAE FORTITVDINIS VIRTVTVMQVE OMNIVM HAEREDITATEM AMPLISSIMAM ARCHIEPISCOPVS ET PATER OPTIMVS CLERO BONVM DECLARAVIT INDE QVI TANTO AN- TRVM ET LATINORVM ET GRAECORVM TE- SINNII MARTIRII ET ALEXANDRI MDLXXXII SEDENTE GREGORIO XIII PONTIFICE MAXI- TISTI SVCCEDERIT MEDIOLANENSIS CIVITAS DIGNVM COGNOVIT” and “D. SIMPLI- STIMONIO ITALIAM CVNCTAM MIRIFICE MO CAROLO SR CARDINALE TIT S PRAXEDIS ARCHIEPISCOPO SERAPHINO A MEDIO- CIANVM IPSI DEVS OPTIMVS MAXIMVS EPISCOPALIVM SPLENDORE VNIVERSAM POPVLO MEDIOLANENSI PATRONVM AL- ECCLESIAM ILLVSTRAVIT”. LANO MONASTERII CASSINENSIS ABBATE”. TERVM ESSE VOLVIT” and “S. SIMPLICIANE POPVLVM TIBI DEDITVM VT FACIS 231. For example; on the arch outside San Simpliciano are the inscriptions: “D. SIMPLICIANO SISINIO MARTIRIO ALEXANDRO GERVNTIO BENIGNO ANTONINO AMPELLIO DE MEDIOLANO, ROMA, CHARTAGINE, HAETRVRIA BENEMERITIS”; “QVIBVS TVER[E]”. SIDVE COLIT” and “S. AMBROSIVS CIVES TIBI CREDITOS [DEDITOS (Ambrosiana)] 240. “SISINIVS ECCLESIA DEI AEDIFICATA A TIA ERGA PAVPERES PIETATE, MVNDI CONTEMPTV IN FIDE ET RECTA VIVENDI RA- FOVERE PERGE TIONE FIRMANTIBVS” [PROTEGE (Ambrosia- MENCLOTIVS MEDIOLANENSIS ARCHIEPISCOPVS LXV AGAPETO FIDEI HOSTIBVS COMPREHENSVS VSQVE AD NECEM VERBERIBVS ACCERSITVS DEMVM NOCTV TVBA AENEA PERCVSSVS CAPITE PRAECISO PALMAM MARTIRII ACCEPIT”; “MARTIRIVS SVBVLIS TRANSVER- XI PONT. FACTVS SEDIT ANNOS V HANC S. GEORGIO DICATAM ECCLESIAM CON- BERATVS ET IN CAPITE VVLNERIBVS AFFECTVS DVM AD IDOLVM RAPTATVR PRAE- STRVXIT ATQVE DOTAVIT ALAMANIAM INSTITVIT IMPERIALIQVE AVTHORITATE CLARIS FIDEI CONFESSIONIBVS NOBILITATVS MARTIRII CVRSO CONFECTO CORO- na)]”. and “SANCTORVM FIDEI Beatrice “SANCTORVM SIMPLICIANI SISINII MARTIRII ALEXANDRI NVMINIBVS SIBI GRAVIBVS ET SANCTISSIMIS ET D. GERVNTIO AMPELLIO ANTONINO OPTIME DE SE ME- ADIVVIT ET SCIENTIAE ACTIONVMQVE MAGNIS MALIS SAEPE LIBERATA MEDIOLANENSIS CIVITAS EXIMIA PIETATE HVNC AS- 235. “D. AMBROSII APVD DEVM OPTIMVM MAXIMVM PATRONI SVI INTERCESSIONE EXEMPLA AD EMENDATIONEM MVLTVM PROSVNT”. At the porta POPVLOQVE MEDIOLANENSI RELIQVIT PA- 239. Urbano Monti, BAM, Cod. P 250 sup., 41v: “In questi giorni si diede fine alla porta dil pallazo archiepiscopale ch’è verso la piaza detta il Verzero sopra la quale dovevasi mettere tre bellissime statue in bronzo quale allora gitate da Leone Aretino statuario ecc.mo si lavoravano in casa sua de quale una era quella del protectore nostro et patrone Ambrosio santo et le altre due de li Santi Gervaso et Protaso”. GRATIA NON REFERRI POTEST QVANTA DEBETVR HABENDA EST QVAM MAXIMAM ANIMI NOSTRI CAPERE POSSVNT”; “D SIMPLICIANO SISINIO MARTIRIO ALEXANDRO GERVNTIO BENIGNO ANTONINO AMPELLIO VRBEM MEDIOLANI OMNI CONSTAN- 236. “ALAMANNVS 242. Archivio della Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano, Archivio storico, 170, 3; reprinted, with minor omissions, in Annali della Fabbrica del Duomo…, cit. [cf. note 166], 4, 1881, pp. 185-187. 243. There follows an extremely long inscription with a list of the archbishops of Milan. 244. Augustine, Confessiones, 8, 2, on Victorinus. 245. The Description does not explicitly mention the smaller building immediately behind our long wooden structure, but its presence seems certain since we learn from the same source that the arches at the front were connected to the doors of the church thus guaranteeing the presence of a second vestibule 60 br. 16 br. occupying the space between the two outer aisles of the church. 246. Puccinelli, Zodiaco…, cit. [cf. note 189], p. 92, says Doric. TIBVS ET PIETATIS ORNAMENTIS DIVINAE 233. “S. SIMPLICIANVM D. AMBROSIVS AGENS ANIMAM SVA IPSE VOCE VIRVM RELIGIONE DOCENDO VSVS EST.” 241. F. Repishti, R. Schofield, in Il giovane Borromini. Dagli esordi a San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, exhibition catalogue (Lugano, 1999), eds. M. Kahn-Rossi, M. Franciolli, Milano 1999, p. 98, no. 33 TIBVS PERAGRATIS ROMAE VICTORINVM 230. “D. O. M . TRANSLATIO SS SIMPLICIANI, GERVNTII, BENIGNI, ANTONINI, AMPELLII ARCHIEPISCOPORVM MEDIOLANENSIVM ET BEATISSIMORVM MARTYRVM SI- 234. “S. SIMPLICIANO ADIVTORE S. AMBROSIVS IN D. AVGVSTINO DE CHRISTIANA NATVR”; “ALEXANDER INTER CORPORA SS. SISINII ET MARTIRII MEDIVS INTERIECTVS AD ARAM SATVRNI VIA ARDVA RAPTVS IDOLI CVRSV EXPLOSO IN FIDE PRAEPOSITO PERSISTENS VARIE CRVCIATVS ET IN IGNEM DENIQVE POSITVS AD PRAEMIVM EVOLAVIT IN COELVM”. 247. Monti (BAM, Cod. P 250 sup.) includes a copy of Borromeo’s pastoral letter about Simplicianus (13r-29v); a discussion of the importance of the 2nd Council of Nicea (25v) to the cult of relics; and (31v ff) the description of some of the more important elements of the procession. Arriving at the Duomo, he reports (33v): “Su la piazza dil Domo vi erano cinque porte o sia cinque archi triunfali tutti fabricati sotto una istessa linea, pur duplicate verso le mura di detta chiesa artificiosamente fatte con grande e bella vista, con architravi depinti a chiaro e scuro, et sopra il cornisone che le religava tutte insieme erano molti santi arcivescovi et vescovi retratti, et alltri de i più segnalati a la cità de Milano. La porta di mezo de queste cinque era per contro alla porta grande della chiesa era molto più alta delle altre sopra la quale era una figura de nostro Signore Giesu Cristo glorioso con le stigmate. Tra queste cinque porte a le mura della chiesa vi erano altri archi molto bene accomodati tutti sotto un medemo ordine con altri santi quasi tutti titollari dela cità de Milano; a canto ala porta di mezo che era la magiore vi erano doi gran quadri l’uno ala destra l’altro alla sinistra mano, quello alla destra dinotava et vi era [34r] ritratto S. Ambrosio che vietò l’ingresso dela chiesa al gran Teodosio imperatore per haver fatto amazare li citadini Tesalonicensi, qual poi riconosciuto de l’errore et fatta la penitenza fa da egli restituito alla ciesa; et da l’altra parte vi era l’istesso glorioso santo Ambrosio che battegiava santo Agostino presente santo Simpliciano. Più basso sotto questi quadroni vi erano l’effigie al naturale di grandezza uno per parte de i gloriosi santi Gervaso et Pro- 119 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org taso. Il Duomo era dentro benissimo tapezato et ornato de altri assaissimi quadri de santi et sante quali rendevano molta divotione alli processionanti. Indi si passava per la piaza dil Domo ornata benissimo de tapezarie et quadri, doppo la quale si trovava la porta del broletto molto bene ornata de arco triunfale dove la piaza de mercanti trovossi pomposamente ornata di spalere et belissime tapezarie, sotto il portico poi de’ dottori vi erano molto mortari che si sparorno nel passare de corpi santi, come anche si fece alla corte de l’Arengo da la guardia di essa ch’è con bellissima ordinanza comparse sempre leggiadramente armata, nell’uscir da detta [34v]”. The gates of the piazza Mercanti towards Cordusio were decorated with an arch with, above, a painting of the victory of the Milanese against Odoacro with the ancient waggon with three doves on the standard; on one side of the arch the victory of the Milanese against Barbarossa; on the other, a painting of Barbarossa with the horse collapsing under him caused by divine intervention. Barbarossa had a vision the night before in which the saints told him that if he entered Milan he would be ruined; lower down on the arch, the figures of Gerontius, Sisinius, Martirius, Alexander; at the top of arch, Simplicianus. 248. Urbano Monti, BAM, Code P 250 sup., fol. 65r. 249. The list of archbishops omits many names included in Galesino’s Tabula (eg. Mirocles, Orosius, Iulius, Cicerius, and nearly 20 others; a fact to be explained). The eleven martyrs are Protasius, Gervasius, Sebastianus, Vitalis, Valeria, Nazarius, Celsus, Nabor, Felix, Aquilinus, Victor. 250. See for example, A. Borromeo, Le controversie giurisdizionali tra potere laico e potere ecclesiastico nella Milano spagnola sul finire del Cinquecento, in “Studia Borromaica”, 4, 1991, pp. 43-89; Id., L’arcivescovo Carlo Borromeo, la corona spagnola e le controversie giurisdizionali a Milano, in Buzzi, Zardin (eds.), Carlo Borromeo e l’opera della “Grande Riforma”…, cit. [cf. note 152], pp. 257-272. 251. Rufinus, HE, 2, 18 (PL, 21, 525); Paulinus, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 24; Anonymous Carolingian, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 49-59; Augustine, Civ., 5, 26 (PL, 41, 172-173); Sozomenus, HE, 7, 25 (PG, 67, 1494 ff); Theodoretus, HE, 5, 17-8 (PG, 82, 1231 ff; see also Ambrosius, Tutte le opere di Sant’Ambrogio. 24.1: Le fonti greche su Sant’Ambrogio, ed. C. Pasini, Milano-Roma 1990, for Theodoretus and all other Greek sources about Ambrose; Nicephorus, HE, 12, 40 and 41 (PG, 146, 887 ff). Pasini, Ambrogio di Milano…, cit. [cf. note 184], pp. 147 ff and 173 ff; McLynn, Ambrose of Milan…, cit. [cf. note 184], pp. 291 ff and pp. 315-330. M. Sordi, I rapporti di Ambrogio con gli imperatori del suo tempo, in Nec timeo mori…, cit. [cf. note 185], pp. 106-118; Ambrose used the threat of exclusion from the church several times in his dealings with the emperors; against Valentinianus II in 384 because of the controversy over the Altar of Victory; in 390 against Theodosius for the massacre in Thessalonica; and in 392 against Eugenius. 252. A. Forcella, Notizie storiche sugli intarsiatori e scultori in legno nelle chiese di Milano, Milano 1896, pp. 29-38. For illustrations of the whole cycle of Ambrose reliefs, A.M. Brizio, Sant’Ambrogio in maestà nel coro ligneo del Duomo fra i santi martiri e i santi vescovi della diocesi milanese, in Sant’Ambrogio nell’arte del Duomo, Milano 1973; E. Brivio, M. Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio narrata nell’antico coro del Duomo di Milano, Milano 1996. 253. Carlo Borromeo, Omelie e discorsi vari di San Carlo Borromeo Cardinale arcivescovo di Milano per la prima volta volgarizzati, 5 vols., Milano 1844, 4, pp. 240-241. 254. Paulinus, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 34; Anonymous Carolingian, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 66-7. 255. Paulinus, Vita,cit. [cf. note 124], 11, 12, 1-13; 15; Anonymous Carolingian, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 25-22. 256. Sources: note 251. 257. Paulinus, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 24; Anonymous Carolingian, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124], 47-8. 258. Further details in Federico Borromeo, Litterae de ecclesiastica iurisdictione ad regem catholicum Philippum II, Milano 1596. 259. “D SISINIO MARTIRIO ET A[LEXAN- DRO] DEFENSORIBVS ET VICTORIAE DE FEDERICO AENOBARBO VRBIS MEDIOLANI EVERSORE PARTE AVCTORIBVS”. 260. Donato Bossi, Chronica bossiana, Milano 1492; includes an elaborate description of the devices on the standards of the forces from the various gates of Milan, the story of the three doves landing on the mast of the waggon, and the consequent celebration of the feast day of the saints (“insuper tertio calendas iunii”) which the Milanese decided to celebrate in perpetuum. Giorgio Merula, Georgii Merula alexandrini antiquitatis vicecomitum liber i, in Blondi Flavii forliviensis de Roma instaurata, Turin 1527, fol. 230v, has only a brief mention. Corio, L’Historia di Milano, cit. [cf. note 12], pp. 140-141, describes the battle at Legnano but does not say that the victory was due to a miracle performed by the saints, but that it occurred on their saints’-day (citing Leo and Jacopo di Voragine), three days before the calends of June; the Milanese then decided to celebrate it in perpetuum because, they said, Ambrose found the bodies of the three saints in the monastery of San Simpliciano and then had them buried at Brivio. Sigonio, Caroli Sigonii Historiarum…, cit. [cf. note 8], Bk. 14, pp. 543544; his account is roughly the same as that in our Description. 261. The author of the Description, however, assures us that there was no representation of St Benignus in the Piazza dei Mercanti; Borromeo had obtained annual plenary indulgences from Gregory XIII for those who visited San Simpliciano on 3 March, and for those present at the translation in May; but by an error of transcription Benigno’s name was left out of the list, sent back by the Pope to Carlo, of the saints to be transported, so he had to be omitted – which is curious since he is mentioned elsewhere in the inscriptions produced for the procession. 262. For Ambrose, Augustine and Simplicianus: A. Di Bernardino, Agostino d’Ippona, la storia, in 387 d.c. Ambrogio e Agostino…, cit. [cf. note 184], pp. 214221. 263. 3rd Provincial Council, 1573 (AEM, 2, 232-234); 4th Provincial Council, 1576 (AEM, 2, 427). 264. Galesini’s life, extensive travels and many writings are described in Sala, Documenti…, cit. [cf. note 196], 1, pp. 578 ff; 2, pp. 524-527; F. Argelati, Biblioteca scriptorum mediolanensium, Milano 1745, 2, 2, 2113-2119, who lists many unpublished MSS now in the Ambrosiana; G.T. Moro, Biblioteca picena, Osimo 1796, V, pp. 1-15. M. Navoni, in Dizionario della Chiesa ambrosiana, cit. [cf. note 129], 3, pp. 1359-1361; E. Pastorello, L’epistolario manuziano inventario cronologico-analitico 1483-1597, Firenze 1957, p. 260; The Aldine Press. Catalogue of the Ahmanson-Murphy Collection of Books by or relating to the Press in the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, incorporating works recorded elsewhere, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 2001, nos. 675, 696, 698, 724, 731, 733, 760. 265. Giovanni de Deis, Successores S. Barnabae apostoli in ecclesia mediolanensi ex bibliotheca vaticana et ex manuscripto illustrissimi et reverendissimi Cardinalis Sirleti…, Roma 1589. Dedicated to Card. Niccolò Sfrondati by the printer Vincenzo Accolti. 266. E. Cattaneo, Arcivescovi di Milano santi, in “Ambrosius”, 4, 1955, pp. 101117; Id., Il Breviario ambrosiano. Note storiche e illustrative, Milano 1943; Id., Cataloghi e biografie dei vescovi di Milano dalle origini al secolo XV, Milano 1982 (Archivio ambrosiano, 44), pp. 45-50; C. Marcora, La “congregatio de vitis archiepiscoporum”, in “Memorie storiche della diocesi di Milano”, 3, 1956, pp. 74-88; Lettere edite e inedite di S. Carlo Borromeo al card. G. Sirleto, in “Scuola cattolica”, 38, March 1910, appendix, pp. 14 ff. 267. Martyrologium S. Romanae Ecclesiae…, Venezia; Breviarium ambrosianum Caroli SRE Cardinalis tit. S Praxedis archiepiscopi iussu recognitum atque editum, Milano. A late version of the Tabula archiepiscoporum is printed in AEM 3, 381-401. mento. Monsignore Galesino ha fatto la fatica intorno alla vita de gli’arcivescovi di Milano; però in questa angustia di tempo si supplica a V S ill.ma, che dia ordine al sudetto mon.ore o di farmi havere i scritti della vita de i sudetti santi, o di venirsene a Milano, acciò possano concertare le imagini la quale cosa in un giorno si spedirà, quando si habbiano quei tali scritti”. 269. For the enumeration, documentation and beautiful photographs of all the reliefs, Brizio, Sant’Ambrogio in maestà…, cit. [cf. note 252]; Brivio, Navoni, Vita di Sant’Ambrogio…, cit. [cf. note 252]. The article by Dallaj [cf. note 183] remains unsurpassed. 270. See, for example, the terracotta model by Francesco Brambilla of the scene with the Leopards (ill. 18); Brizio, Sant’Ambrogio in maestà…, cit. [cf. note 252], p. 83. 271. Paulinus, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124]; the Anonymous Carolingian, Vita, cit. [cf. note 124]. 272. M. Pigozzi, Descrittione del’edificio, et di tutto l’apparato per le esequie di Anna d’Austria, 1581, in “Arte lombarda”, 94/95, 3-4, 1990, pp. 128-140. 273. BAM, Cod. P 249 sup., fols. 142r ff. It was in connection with this event that Galesini wrote the following to Borromeo on 22 August 1581 (BAM, Cod. F 60 inf. f. 250): “Il catafalco per l’essequie della serenissima regina ancora non è finito: et s’io non prohibiva a maestro Pelegrino alcune cose che haveano simbolo con il paganesmo, andava anco più alla lunga; con tutto ciò per un’altra volta sarà di bisogno dare modo et forma che convenghi molto più alla pietà et religione christiana”. 274. Repishti, Schofield, Architettura e Controriforma…, cit. [cf. note 207]. 275. N.A Houghton Brown, The Milanese Architecture of Galeazzo Alessi, 2 vols, New York-London 1982, I, p. 373; S. Della Torre, R.V. Schofield, Pellegrino Tibaldi architetto e il S. Fedele di Milano. Invenzione e costruzione di una chiesa esemplare, Como 1994, pp. 33 ff; Pellegrino was engineer of the church from 1568; the date of the design of the facade is not known, and facades usually come last; the present, unfinished facade was not built before 1576. 276. Maselli, Saggi di storia eretica lombarda…, cit. [cf. note 4], pp. 94-95. 268. BAM, Cod. F 68 inf., fol. 155: “Il Crocefisso del Duomo non può essere spedito da qui [he is writing from the Arcivescovado] a molti mesi. Gl’angeli per il tabernacolo, di legno dorato, importeriano due solamente per parola degli artefici cento scudi. Il capitolo per hora non si risolve a questa spesa per la povertà della fabrica, se V S ill.ma non lo commanda; et tanto più, che l’apparato, che si farà per la processione di S.to Simpliciano con la fattura de i santi secondo il dissegno di V. S. ill.ma, vole importare poco manco di ducento scudi; hieri si cominci l’incanto, et giovedi si deliberarà. Il lampadario si guarnirà con bello orna- 120 16|2004 Annali di architettura Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza www.cisapalladio.org