I’ll think of today as Milan Duomo day, but we actually didn’t start to explore the cathedral until the afternoon. The morning was devoted to Pinacoteca di Brera, one of Italy’s finest art museums, which specializes, though is not limited to, art from Lombardy and Venice. We had a guide who had much to say about the works she showed us. I don’t have much to repeat. But here are some items that we learned about or that caught my eye.
We had a crazy lunch– with a couple of others we tried McDonalds! Beef from Chianti! Better bread! Vine ripe tomatoes! Very salty, and the french fries were not as good. Now I can say I’ve tried McDonalds in Italy. But it was fast food, and we needed to be fast, to head to the piazza for our tour of the Duomo.
It is a magnificent, confection of building. It took over 600 years to build, is the largest Duomo in Italy (because St. Peter’s Basilica is in Vatican City) and is enlivened by 3,400 statues. The current doors were only finished in 1965, so I can just barely define it as “in my lifetime.” It is dedicated to the birth of Mary, and the Madonnina is the shining gold statue on the very top, holding a lighting rod in her halberd.
Two other churches had occupied the footprint in the past, and they were torn down as the cathedral was built. Once inside the cathedral we were also able to tour the archaeology museum beneath the cathedral to see the remains of the older Christian church. This is a photo of the ancient baptismal font. Ancient coins, left as offerings, had been excavated from the canal that brought the water in; clearly today’s visitors like to also leave coin offerings here.
Illogical as it may seem, I felt like the building seemed bigger on the outside than the inside. It may be that the Gothic architecture, with so many columns and the fact that the central section is roped off never made me feel like I was in a vast open space.
We were dead on our feet, so took a break for cake and espresso across the street. the piazza is surrounded by shopping, of course, for this is Milan!
Replenished, we headed to the Duomo museum, housed nearby. It is well worth a visit because it really helped give us an appreciation for the work that continues in making and maintaining this cathedral. In the museum, old sculpture that has been replaced is on display, as are models for work done, large and small. I would wish for some biographical information on the people who did the work; they are long forgotten except for what they created. A marble worker, “name once known,” could have spent a whole career, and his son and grandson too, and never seen the Duomo completed. Some sculptures were undoubtedly repaired and replaced before the construction was even considered finished.
The best part of the visit came last, at about 4:00 pm, when we had tickets to ride an elevator all the way up to the terraces of the Duomo! Oh my goodness, what a sight! We could see the marble up close, and we could see the city. The light kept changing. The view made it clear how the marble has to be replaced as the newer light pieces and darker old ones make an irregular checkerboard.
I generally tried to crop the scaffolding out of my compositions, but it was very present. This cathedral may one day boast almost all replacement parts. Although an elevator took us up, our own feet trotted us down, about 200 steps.
Gelato on the way home, dinner with friends in the evening. I can am struggling to hold my eyes open.
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