San Pietro in Gessate.
When we visited Milan for the first time in 2016, there was no metro connection yet between the Aeroporto di Milano-Linate and the city centre. Back then, the easiest way for us to get to and from the airport was taking a bus. The bus stop was near the Courts of Milan, and on the other side of the road I spotted a church with an interesting Gothic façade. It turned out to be the church of San Pietro in Gessate. My travel guide had some nice photos of the frescoes that could be admired inside, so I definitely wanted to visit the building. I checked my watch and saw that there was plenty of time left to pop inside. Leaving my baggage with my better half, I crossed the road and took a photo of the façade. Unfortunately, the façade was all that I got to see of the church. The door turned out to be locked, so a visit to San Pietro was out of the question. It took a full nine years before I was back in Milan. San Pietro in Gessate was high on my list.
History
The church is obviously dedicated to Saint Peter, the first among Christ’s disciples. Apparently, there is a link between the church and the town of Gessate in Lombardy, which lies some twenty kilometres northeast of Milan. Perhaps the members of the Humiliati, an order that initially administered the church, were from this town or had possessions there. Later these Humiliati were replaced by Benedictines associated with the abbey of Santa Giustina in Padova. Although the history of the church goes back to at least the thirteenth century, the current building mostly dates from the fifteenth. In about 1460 the construction of a new church in the Lombardian Gothic style was launched, possibly under the direction of the architect Guiniforte Solari (ca. 1429-1481) and perhaps with the participation of his son Pietro Antonio Solari (ca. 1445-1493). The construction was sponsored by two brothers from the Florentine Portinari family, Acerrito and Pigello Portinari (1421-1468). Both were representatives of the Medici Bank in Milan, and Pigello moreover commissioned the famous Portinari chapel in the church of Sant’Eustorgio in Milan. The new San Pietro in Gessate was completed in 1476.
Interior of the church.
If you inspect the church from above, or from the intersection of the Via Chiossetto and Via Filippo Corridoni, you will notice that the back of the building was prolonged. This expansion in Renaissance style dates from the sixteenth century. Between 1910 and 1912 an important restoration was carried out by Diego Brioschi. The church then suffered much hardship during the Second World War. In 1943 Allied bombardments caused heavy damage to the building, especially to the chapels on the right side. In spite of skillful restorations there is basically nothing interesting left to see on this side of the church. The convent that stood to the right of the church was also badly damaged. It nowadays houses a high school. If you study the complex from above using Google Maps, you will see that the Liceo Scientifico Statale ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ still has the shape of a cloister.
Things to see
The façade of the church is mostly a product of Brioschi’s restoration at the start of the twentieth century. Although most other Baroque decorations have been removed from the building, San Pietro has kept its seventeenth-century portal. It surrounds the sole surviving entrance of the church (previously there had been three). The interior of the building is much more interesting than the exterior, so let us quickly go inside. We immediately notice that San Pietro is a rather dark church. It has a nave and two aisles, with five chapels on either side, in addition to two large chapels in the transept. A possible remnant of the first church on this spot is the Cappella di San Benedetto to the left of the choir. Here we can still find traces of frescoes of members of the Humiliati, an order that was suppressed in 1571 by Pope Pius V (1566-1572).
Cappella della Vergine.
As I already mentioned, only the chapels on the left side are of interest. Let us start with the second chapel, the Cappella della Vergine. On the walls we find fifteenth-century frescoes with stories from the life of the Virgin Mary. The identity of the painters is still debated, but the information panel in the church attributes them to Agostino de’ Mottis and his assistants, and to Giovanni Donato Montorfano (ca. 1460-1502). The third chapel on the left is the Cappella di Sant’Antonio Abate, dedicated to Saint Anthony the Abbot. The frescoes about his life were almost certainly painted by Giovanni Donato Montorfano. They were executed in the 1480s on the orders of the late Mariotto Obiano and his wife Antonia Michelotti; the couple were immortalised in the altarpiece of the chapel. The frescoes in the Cappella di Sant’Antonio Abate are of excellent quality. It is therefore a pity that the light in the chapel is so bad.
Cappella di Sant’Antonio Abate.
The next two chapels are dedicated to Saints Antonius of Padova and John the Baptist. The latter chapel was once again frescoed by Montorfano, whose brother lived in the adjacent convent. Then we get to the very interesting Cappella di Sant’Ambrogio in the left transept, also known as the Cappella Grifi. The chapel was fitted out and embellished on behalf of Ambrogio Grifi (died 1493). In the late fifteenth century he was an apostolic protonotary, personal physician and counsellor at the Sforza court in Milan. The most interesting artwork in the chapel is the effigy of Grifi’s tomb, a work by Benedetto Briosco (ca. 1460-1517). The frescoes in the chapel feature events from the life of Ambrogio Grifi’s namesake, Saint Ambrosius of Milan (ca. 340-397). They are the work of Bernardino Buttinone (ca. 1450-1510) and Bernardo Zenale (died 1526). Unfortunately, their state of conservation is lamentable.
Also in bad condition is a fresco in the right transept with the funeral of Saint Martin, attributed to Ambrogio Bergognone (died 1524). The fresco shows us how Saint Ambrosius attends the funeral of the bishop of Tours, a man who became famous for sharing his cloak with a beggar. Note that historically Ambrosius could never have been present, as he died on 4 April 397 and Martinus seven months later, on 8 November of that same year. Nevertheless, it is a story that we see in other places in Milan as well, for instance in the church of Sant’Ambrogio, where Ambrosius himself found his final resting place.
Sources: Dorling Kindersley travel guide for Milan and the Lakes (2010), p. 99, information panel in the church, Chiesa di San Pietro in Gessate – Wikipedia and Chiesa di S. Pietro in Gessate – Lombardia Beni Culturali.