San Marco.
San Marco is a very large church just a stone’s throw away from the famous Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. The church is at least 95 metres deep, and the history of the building goes back to the thirteenth century. Traditionally there is a link between the church and the Venetians, who consider Saint Mark the Evangelist – San Marco – as their most important patron saint. The story goes that Venice came to the aid of Milan when the latter city was invested by the emperor Frederick Barbarossa. We may doubt whether the Milanese benefited much from this aid, as in 1162 the emperor looted and destroyed their city. The first version of San Marco may have arisen when Milan was rebuilt after these horrors. The construction of the current church started in 1254. The man who commissioned it was Lanfranco Settala (died 1263), prior general of the Hermits of Saint Augustine. In later centuries several chapels were added to the right side of the church, chapels which were subsequently leased and sponsored by prominent Milanese families. No chapels were built on the left side; this was where the Augustinian convent was situated. The Augustinians have left long ago and their cloisters have been converted into a high school.
Exterior and interior
The beautiful Lombardian Gothic façade was thoroughly restored in the nineteenth century by Carlo Maciachini (1818-1899). Maciachini incorporated many original elements into the façade, such as the portal and the fourteenth-century statues above it. The three statues represent, from left to right, Saints Augustinus (ca. 354-430), Mark (first century) and Ambrosius (ca. 340-397). Augustinus formulated the monastic rule that was named Rule of Saint Augustine after him. He has been depicted with a bishop’s mitre, but he is also wearing the habit of an Augustinian monk. The text in his book reads HIC ME GENVIT IN CHRISTO, “this led me to be born in Christ”. It is a reference to his conversion to Christianity, which took place in Milan in 386 (see Pavia: San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro). Augustinus was later baptised by Ambrosius, the then bishop of Milan. Ambrosius is dressed in a chasuble. The central figure is Saint Mark, holding his gospel in his hands. His central position is justified by the fact that the church is dedicated to him. The three statues were possibly made by the fourteenth-century sculptor Giovanni di Balduccio from Pisa or his collaborators.
The nave of San Marco feels rather void. The seventeenth-century Baroque interior that we see is the work of the architect Giovanni Ruggeri (1665-1729). In the choir we find paintings by Camillo Procaccini (1561-1629) and Giovan Battista Crespi, nicknamed Il Cerano (1573-1632), while the Neoclassicist high altar is a work by Giocondo Albertolli (1742-1839). Of the chapels on the right side I especially liked the first one, the Cappella Foppa. The chapel is dedicated to the apostles Saints Peter and Paul, and has colourful frescoes about their lives by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo (1538-1592), painted in 1571. Lomazzo’s Gloria Angelica in the conch of the apse made me think of Correggio’s fresco in the cathedral of Parma, although it fails to reach the same level of brilliance as that masterpiece. Although there are no chapels on the left side, for reasons that were already mentioned above, we do find a very interesting and richly decorated chapel in the left transept. This Cappella del Crocifisso or Cappella della Pietà dates from the seventeenth century. The chapel was decorated by five different painters: Ercole Procaccini the Younger (ca. 1605-1680), Giovanni Stefano Danedi, nicknamed Il Montalto (1612-1690), Luigi Pellegrini Scaramuccia (1616-1680), German-born Johann Christoph Storer (ca. 1620-1671) and lastly Antonio Busca (1625-1686).
Gloria Angelica – Paolo Lomazzo.
Transept
I spent most of my time in the right transept. Here we find a large but damaged fresco by the brothers Giovanni Battista (ca. 1560-1627) and Giovanni Mauro (1575-1640) della Rovere. In their own time they were known as the Fiammenghini, the ‘Flemings’. This was because their father was from Antwerp in Flanders. The fresco that the brothers made represents an important episode from the history of the Augustinian order. Although Augustinus himself formulated the Rule of Saint Augustine and is therefore considered the founder of the order, it was actually only formally founded in the thirteenth century. In 1244 several groups of hermits who followed the rule were officially merged, which makes 1244 the founding year of the Augustinian order. In 1256 several other groups of hermits were added to this order by a bull promulgated by Pope Alexander IV (1254-1261). Lanfranco Settala was subsequently elected prior general. It is Pope Alexander’s decision to integrate the various groups of hermits that is depicted in the Fiammenghini fresco.
Below the fresco of the two brothers the remnants of fourteenth-century frescoes have been discovered. One of these features a Crucifixion and is attributed to Anovelo da Imbonate. Below this fresco we see the funerary monument of Martino Aliprandi (died 1341), a lawyer who worked at the Visconti court in Milan. The monument is possibly a work by a follower, student or assistant of Giovanni di Balduccio. In the left relief we see how the deceased is introduced to the Madonna and Child by Saints Ambrosius and John the Baptist. The central relief features the Holy Trinity, while the relief on the right depicts the lawyer giving a lecture. The Aliprandi family was very active in this church, for it also sponsored the Cappella di Sant’Orsola, which is located in the transept as well. In a fresco that has been preserved we see how Salvarino Aliprandi (died 1344) offers a scale model of the chapel to the Madonna and Child. The standing saint is Saint Augustinus, while the other kneeling figures are Salvarino’s sons. Salvarino’s sarcophagus can be found in the adjacent Cappella di San Tommaso da Villanova.
Madonna and Child with members of the Aliprandi family.
Funerary monument of Lanfranco Settala – Giovanni di Balduccio.
One last object to see in the right transept is the funerary monument (ca. 1355) for Lanfranco Settala. Note that this is not the prior general from the thirteenth century who was responsible for the construction of the current church. This Lanfranco Settala was also an Augustinian monk, and moreover the confessor of Giovanni Visconti, who was simultaneously Lord and Archbishop of Milan between 1339 and 1354. We see Lanfranco depicted behind a lectern while teaching a group of ten students; it is quite likely that the deceased was a professor of theology at the University of Paris. The scene of the lecture is flanked by two female saints, Agnes and Catherine of Alexandria. The upper part of the monument again features the deceased, but now he is lying on his deathbed. What makes the monument so special is that the original polychromation has been partially preserved. The Augustinian habit of Lanfranco is still black, the escutcheons on the lower part of the monument are still red, and many of the decorations are still gilded. Because of the high quality of the work the monument is usually attributed to Giovanni di Balduccio, a sculptor who also made the even more spectacular tomb of Saint Peter Martyr in the Milanese church of Sant’Eustorgio.
Sources: Dorling Kindersley travel guide for Milan and the Lakes (2010), p. 112, Trotter travel guide for Northwest Italy (2016), p. 369, Monumento funebre di Lanfranco Settala – Lombardia Beni Culturali and Chiesa di San Marco (Milano) – Wikipedia.