Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/350

290 republican and royal again, and, we hope, once more and forever to be free,—whether in her beauteous self, her noble edifices, or her famous children, —whether furnishing the world with warriors' panoply or ladies' fashions,—has ever been magnificent, influential and renowned. Well towards its very centre, in the midst of the Piazza di Duomo, with immediately on the north the Corso Francesco, and on the south the Imperial Palace, towers Il Duomo di Milano,

This temple is one of the most marvelous and intensely interesting structures of the world, whether considered in regard to its architects, its clergy, its foundation, its history, its vastness, its beauty, its treasures, its subterranean places of worship—the Winter Church and the Borromean Chapel, its centuries-prolonged course of construction, or its having been the means of transmitting to us, from the Middle Ages, the true —popularly to be forever known as —as derived from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

This article, though apparently somewhat extended, is yet, with respect to Milan Cathedral, little more than a catalogue raisonne of remarkable points, so condensed, that it scarcely varies from the compendious details heretofore published in a number of consulted authorities, treating of this pile and its neighborhood; and the general correctness of which is confirmed by the vivid recollection of our senior editor, who has himself seen the reality, which is not, and cannot well be overdrawn. Yet, in all its slenderness of mere description, the account—from a subtle influence upon the imagination—actually has the effectiveness of a romance. And though familiar enough to some of our readers, to most it will be as engaging as it is new.

As is not unusual in the case of important structures, the present fane is certainly the third, perhaps the fourth,re-edification of that original one, mentioned by St. Ambrose, in a letter to his sister Marcellina, as "the great new Basilica." The earliest was destroyed by Attila. Rebuilt, it was accidentally burned, in 1015; and again destroyed by Frederick Barbarossa in 1162. This demolition, however, was, it is claimed, only partial, arising from the fall upon the church of a lofty bell-tower, destroyed to preclude its employment as a fortress.

The corner stone of the pile, as now existing, was laid by Gian' Galeazzo Visconti, in 1387. The undertaking is variously ascribed to the fulfilment of a vow, and the wish to encourage the arts. The Duke, seeking an architect beyond the Alps, applied to the Free Masons of Germany; and Italian Patriotism has vainly sought to disparage the claims of Heinrich Arler of Gmunden, or Enrico di Oamodia, as the people of " Welschland" euphonize it. With him, between the years 1388 and 1399, were associated other brethren from Germany, Paris, Normandy, Fribourg, Ulm and Bruges. Some Italians were afterwards called in, among others the celebrated Brunellesclri of Florence. Germany, however, still continued to be special mother of the architects of the cathedral, for, as late as 1486, wrote to the magistrates of Strasburg, desiring them to send him Hammerer, the master mason of their Domkirche, to advise upon some difficulties apprehended in the construction of the central tower.

The erection, frequently interrupted, and, when, resumed, often carried on slowly, is yet unfinished in some of the