Certosa di Pavia

“ Pavia was the Lombard capital from 572 to 774. Its old walls and ramparts remain, in part, to-day and the whole aspect of the town is one of a certain mediævalism which comports little with the modernity of its neighbour, Milan, which has so far outgrown its little brother.
Pavia’s Certosa, on the road from Milan to Pavia, is its chief architectural splendour. Of that there is no doubt. ”

“ In other places I picked up illustrations I desired; for, when the mind is bent on a particular inquiry, it is wonderful how it draws cognate matters to itself. We made an excursion to Pavia, and, on the way, stopped at the beautiful monastery of Certosa. Pavia, situated on the river Ticino, with a covered bridge, is interesting, from its antiquities and history. The churches are specimens of Lombardic architecture, and in the Duomo one was startled to find the tomb of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, whose remains were transferred from Africa to this city. ”

“ In the latter, an edifice of brick with terra-cotta enrichments, the windows were Gothic in outline—an unusual mixture of styles, even in Italy. The munificence of the Sforzas, the hereditary tyrants of the province, embellished the semi-Gothic Certosa of Pavia with a new marble façade, begun 1476 or 1491, which in its fanciful and exuberant decoration, and the small scale of its parts, belongs properly to the early Renaissance. Exquisitely beautiful in detail, it resembles rather a magnified altar-piece than a work of architecture, properly speaking. ”

“ The latest is that most vicious and barbarous style of which the richest types are the lateral porches and upper pinnacles of the Cathedral of Como, and the whole of the Certosa of Pavia:—characterized by the imitative sculpture of large buildings on a small scale by way of pinnacles and niches ”

“ Gian-Galeazzo Visconti was the founder of Milan Cathedral and the Certosa of Pavia, and, as before mentioned, a superb monument has been erected to his memory in the latter church; but this monument was more than half a century in construction, by which time the people had forgotten where the prince had been buried; and thus the body of this great man, who had defeated numberless armies and caused to be erected two of the most sumptuous buildings in Europe, lies no one knows where. ”

“ There are many Renaissance buildings of later date in Milan, but none very remarkable.
Fig. 69.—The Certosa near Pavia. Part of the West Front. (Begun by Borgognone 1473.)
To the early period belongs the design of the façade of the Certosa near Pavia, part of which is shown (Fig. 69) . This was begun as early as 1473, by Ambrogio Borgognone, and was long in hand. It proceeded on the lines settled thus [Pg 189] early, and is probably the richest façade belonging to any church in Christendom; it is executed entirely in marble. ”

“ I don't know much about churches, but there are some things which one is born knowing, I suppose; such as the difference between really great things and those that don't touch greatness. One wouldn't need to be told by a guide-book that the Certosa of Pavia is great—as great as anything ever made, perhaps. Even "little Beechy Kidder" felt that at first glance ”

“ Then the venerable bishops Hermann of Yerden, Daniel of Prague and Otto count Palatine, and master Herbert, provost, whom the lord emperor, by the advice of 22 bishops and the Cistercian and Clairvaux abbots and other monks there present, had sent to Rome to summon the parties before the council at Pavia, gave testimony in the sight of the council that they had summoned before the presence of the church congregated at Pavia, through three edicts at intervals, peremptorily and solemnly, all secular influence being removed, Roland the chancellor and his party ”

“ In Milan, Pavia, and some other Lombard cities, the internal cupola over the crossing was, however, covered externally by a lofty structure in diminishing stages, like that of the Certosa at Pavia (Fig. 152) , or that erected by Bramante for the church of S. M. delle Grazie at Milan. At Prato, in the church of the Madonna delle Carceri (1495–1516) , by Giuliano da S. Gallo, the type of the Pazzi chapel reappears in a larger scale; the plan is cruciform, with equal or nearly equal arms covered by barrel vaults, at whose intersection rises a dome of 279 moderate height on pendentives. ”

“ Rome built basilicas all through the Middle Ages. Tuscany continued to prefer flat walls veneered with marble to the broken surfaces and deep buttresses of France and Germany. Venice developed a Gothic style of façade-design wholly her own (see p. 267) . Nowhere but in Italy could two such utterly diverse structures as the Certosa at Pavia and the cathedral at Milan have been erected at the same time. ”

“ And although he adapted something from the Romanesque, this grand church of his was the precursor of a style that we find amplified, but not improved upon, in Ferrara, Pavia, Parma, and, most notably of all, in the neighbouring city of Lucca. In the history of Italian ecclesiastical architecture Pisa stands pre-eminent.
The façade of the Cathedral is very striking. The seven round arches of the blind arcade that form the lowest tier or base are continued round the entire fabric. ”

“ Palermo, its cathedral, 126, 213 Papal forts, 260, 261, 415 Parma, 238 Paulinus, assists St. Augustine, 145 Pavia, its church, 50, 77 et seq.; its castle, 202; its Certosa, 373 et seq. Penna, inscription there, 191 Pepin, king, founds church of S. Lorenzo, 96 Peter Martyr, St., his tomb, 225 Piacenza, its walls, 106 Pisa, beginning of the Duomo, 173, 209 et seq.; baptistery, 214 Pistoja, 223, 225 et seq.; its baptistery, 240 Pius II., pope, 260 Pliny's villa at Como, 26 Prato, its Duomo, 229 Provveditore, his office, 208 et seq.; his books, 322 et seq. SS. Quattro Coronati, 20 ”

“ A dirty one-eyed fellow keeps the place. In my presence he swept the frescoes over with a scratchy broom, flaying their upper surface in profound unconsciousness of mischief. The armour of the executioner has had its steel colours almost rubbed off by this infernal process. Damp and cobwebs are far kinder.
146
THE CERTOSA
The Certosa of Pavia leaves upon the mind an impression of bewildering sumptuousness: nowhere else are costly materials so combined with a lavish expenditure of the rarest art. ”

“ A comparison of the Church of San Michele of Pavia with that of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes of Caen would alone suggest this, even if we did not know that Lanfranc, who was Abbot of the Monastery when this church was building, had come from Pavia. The rudimentary principles of structure embodied in the churches of Lombardy seem to have been thus transmitted to the North, where they were rapidly developed, so that from San Michele of Pavia to the Cathedral of Amiens a logical and progressive series of changes may be traced. ”

“ Nor was the church in anywise dissimilar, that Luitprand, king of the Lombards, and contemporary of Pepin, father of Charlemagne, constructed in Pavia, and which is called San Piero in Cieldauro ; one built to San Pietro Clivate, in the diocese of Milan, by Desiderius, who succeeded Astolphus, was in the same manner ; as were the monastery of San Vincenzo, in Milan, and the church of Santa Julia, in Brescia ; all buildings erected at enormous cost, but in a rude and irregular manner. ”

“ He founded the cathedral of Milan, built the Certosa and the bridge across the Ticino at Pavia, improved the university of Pavia and established the library there, and restored the university at Piacenza. His bureaucratic government was excellent; he was an able and economical administrator, and was reputed to be one of the wealthiest princes of his time. He was ambitious to reduce all Italy under the sway of the Visconti. ”

“ Thus the whole aspect of the interior was revolutionized. The lightness, spaciousness, and decorative elegance of the basilicas were here exchanged for a sombre and massive dignity severe in its plainness. The Choir was sometimes raised a few feet above the nave, to allow of a crypt and confessio beneath, reached by broad flights of steps from the nave. Sta. 159 Maria della Pieve at Arezzo (9th-11th century) , S. Michele at Pavia (late 11th century) , the Cathedral of Piacenza (1122) , S. Ambrogio at Milan (12th century) , and S. Zeno at Verona (1139) are notable monuments of this style. ”

“ The finest example of their employment, however, is in the magnificent central tower of the Cistercian church at Chiaravalle, near Milan, where the two lower storeys form the drum of the internal dome, the two storeys above are set back, and the upper storey consists of a lofty octagonal tower with conical spire. One of the serious defects in the front of the church of San Michele at Pavia is that it forms a mask, and takes no cognizance of the aisle roofs, which are at a lower level, and the same is found in San Pietro-in-Cielo d’oro at Pavia. ”

“ It is certain, indeed, that there is no truth in the tradition which represents him as having designed, in 1473, the celebrated façade of the Certosa itself. His residence there appears to have been of eight years’ duration, from 1486, when he furnished the designs of the figures of the virgin, saints and apostles for the choir-stalls, executed in tarsia or inlaid wood work by Bartolommeo Pola, till 1494, when he returned to Milan. ”

“ Gerolamo Calvi, in his Matteo de Campione, architetto e scultore, says that nearly all the architecture and sculpture executed in and around Milan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be attributed to the Campionesi. He instances the Sala della Ragione at Padua, with its enormous span of roof, its characteristic arcades and galleries, and the Loggia degli Assi, or Loggia del Consiglio, once the Podestà's palace; the church of S. Agostino at Bergamo, built by Ugo da Campione and his son Giovanni, the castle of the Visconti at Pavia, and many others. ”

“ The abbey church, with its noble colonnaded cupola, is still one of the most conspicuous objects in the flat landscape about Milan; but within all is falling to ruin, and one feels the melancholy charm of a beautiful building which has been allowed to decay as naturally as a tree. The disintegrating touch of nature is less cruel than the restoring touch of man, and the half-ruined frescoes and intarsia-work of Chiaravalle retain more of their original significance than the carefully-guarded treasures of Pavia. ”

“ He, too, became famous in Venice, as did the two brothers Cristoforo and Antonio Mantegazza, who had just been trained under Jacopo da Tradate at Milan. Indeed, the network of this marvellous company of sculptor-builders is at this epoch interwoven in a most complicated manner between Milan, Certosa, Como, Monza, and Venice.
The façade of the Certosa forms precisely the same discord with the body of the building that the façade of Milan does, but here the Renaissance face is so rich and gorgeous that one almost forgives the discord. ”

“ Most of Bramante's pictures in fresco, mentioned by Lomazzo and by Scaramuccia as adorning the public places in Milan, are now destroyed or defaced, if we except those that are preserved in the chambers of the Palazzi Borri and Castiglioni, which are pretty numerous. There is also a chapel in the Certosa at Pavia, said to have been painted by him. His proportions are square, and sometimes have an air of coarseness, his countenances are full, the heads of his old men grand, his colouring is very lively and well relieved from the ground, though not free from some degree of crudity. ”

“ The Certosa is magnificently kept, and in order to make it even more “smart,” the old pavement has been replaced by a very bright mosaic one, which reflects the church like glass. But of all, the choir is the most magnificent, the tabernacle and altar-screen being sumptuous sixteenth century Renaissance work, and on either side of the altar the walls are decorated with rich sculpture.
In the transepts are two monuments, viz., those of Gian-Galeazzo Visconti, the founder of the church, and of Ludovico Moro and his wife, Beatrice d’Este. ”

“ Near the gate on the road to Pavia, we passed a long colonnade which was certainly as old as the times of the Romans. The pillars of marble were quite brown with age, and bound together with iron to keep them from falling to pieces. It was a striking contrast to see this relic of the past standing in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare and surrounded by all the brilliance and display of modern trade.
Once fairly out of the city we took the road to Pavia, along the banks of the canal, just as the rising sun gilded the marble spire of the Duomo. ”

“ Certosa is a large and beautiful place that tops a hill, about three miles outside of Florence, and I enjoyed going there, although it made me feel sad. I suppose my feeling was silly, but the order is an ancient one; they take in no new members, and all that are left to rattle around in the very big place are a half dozen tottering old men, whose hands shake as they unlock the heavy doors for you, and whose breath grows short as they travel the long stairs that take one up to the Capella Prima, which means the main chapel. ”

“ Padua like Athens humanized its conquerors. It became the University town of Venice, as Pavia was of Milan, and it was for a long time protected from the assaults of the Catholic reaction by its rulers, who [Pg 26] possibly were instigated rather by political jealousy of the Papacy as a temporal power, than by any enthusiasm for the humanist and scientific studies of which Padua was the most illustrious home south of the Alps; studies which the powers of the Church began already to recognize as their most dangerous foes. ”