Jessica Gritti

The discovery of five photographs, which show five never published pages of the lost manuscript Trivulzianus 863 and once owned by Costantino Baroni, enables scholars to look for the first time at one of the earliest witnesses of Antonio Averlino’s Treatise on architecture: even if it is only a small part, it is no longer necessary to rely on the former descriptions of the manuscript dating back to more than a hundred years ago...

The baptism of Francesco Sforza, Count of Pavia and son of Gian Galeazzo Sforza and Isabella d’Aragona, is one of the most significant events of the years of the rise to power of Ludovico Maria Sforza, who cleverly managed the occasion as Duke of bari and godfather to the ducal heir. A letter dated 15th May 1492 is certainly connected with the baptism, and is well known because of the possible involvement of bramante in the design of the ephemeral architecture and other activities....

Among the vast production of graphic works linked to the projects for the Duomo and its construction, several drawings can be connected to the plates in Cesare Cesariano’s edition of Vitruvius, although with different dates and motivations. As partly shown by Luca Beltrami’s studies of the 1880s, Cesariano’s plates have a very particular function: on one hand they constitute a graphic testimony of other drawing now lost, dating back to the beginnings of the history of the Cathedral. On the other hand, they were themselves a fundamental benchmark and starting point for the many projects surrounding the Duomo since 1521, as demonstrated by the choice of Cesariano’s Ichnographia as a reference for later plans. Moreover, a thorough analysis of two drawings representing the cross-section of the building (and in particular the one at p. 4v in the second volume of the Bianconi collection) reveals them to be connected – each in its own way – to the plate with Vitruvius’ Scaenographia; such finding leads to a series of observations on Cesariano’s knowledge and use of the sources then available regarding the origins of the Cathedral.

The essay moves from a passage of book XVI of Filarete’s treatise on architecture, where the author outlines the project for a church, ordered by Duchess Bianca Maria Visconti for a monastery of the Hermits of St. Jerome. In this very peculiar project by the Tuscan master, a single-nave, vaulted building is flanked by lateral chapels, overtopped by an accessible matroneum. The project has been connected by John R. Spencer to the church of San Sigismondo in Cremona, founded in 1463. The debate on a type of church that was perceived as abnormal in the coeval Lombard milieu brought forth similar projects by Filarete in Lombardy, such as the Cathedral (1457) and the San Gottardo dei Serviti complex in Bergamo (1462), the latter being known thanks to a document published by Richard Schofield in 2002, but nonetheless essentially ignored in recent studies on Filarete’s activity in Lombardy. The identification of an architectural type described by Filarete in his treatise – and perhaps attempted more than once during his stay in Lombardy – suggests an oft-overlooked line of inquiry, which considers architectural culture and possible influences, such as – in this case – the Badia in Fiesole. Such inquiry – while asking for a wider consideration of Filarete’s work in Lombardy – is crucial to the understanding both of the culture he brought with him, and of its penetration and, in a few cases, influence on Lombard architecture of the time.