The architectural and artistic presence in Milan represents one of the attractions of the Lombard capital. Milan has been among the most important Italian centers in the history of architecture, has made important contributions to the development of art history, and has been the cradle of a number of modern art movements.
History
Gothic style
The Milanese Gothic style was an urban artistic movement at the turn of the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 15th century that was initially introduced into Milanese territory by Cistercian monks. It was the main artistic style of the vast patronage and self-celebrating agenda of the Viscontis, lords of Milan, whose rule over the city is usually associated with the Milanese Gothic period. The conventional date of the beginning of the Gothic period in the territory of the lordship of Milan is often given as the Visconti family's rise to power in 1282. Thus, the penetration of the new artistic trends from beyond the Alps came later than in central Italy, where Cistercian Gothic had already produced almost a century earlier the Abbey of Fossanova (1187) and the Abbey of Casamari (1203). This delay in the introduction of the Gothic style in the Milanese area can be explained by the strong and deep-rooted presence of Romanesque architecture, also by virtue of the link between this architecture and the Empire, which was not by chance overcome only with the new political course of the Visconti seigniory. The date, however, is only indicative since the first example of Gothic appeared in Milan by Cistercian monks in the first half of the 13th century: in 1221 the abbey of Chiaravalle was consecrated by Bishop Enrico Settala. At the same time, however, the Gothic style did not spread noticeably in the area, moreover with stylistic features strongly influenced by Romanesque, until the work of Azzone Visconti between 1329 and 1339, who introduced artists from Pisa and Florence to his court.
The dense agenda of support for the arts inaugurated by Azzone Visconti was continued by his successor Bernabò Visconti, but above all by Gian Galeazzo: under his lordship the largest Italian Gothic building site for the construction of the new city cathedral was inaugurated. For this work, which in the duke's mind would have been monumental and grandiose, architects and artists from all over Europe were called to Milan: the continuous exchange between local and foreign workers helped to bring to maturity the Lombard Gothic style, which before then had been anchored to the strong Romanesque heritage, creating a synthesis between Italian and European Gothic architecture. After a setback due to a turbulent political period after the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Milan's artistic splendor resumed vigor under Filippo Maria Visconti, who in the first half of the 15th century transformed the Milanese court into one of the major centers of Italian humanism, calling to his service such personalities as Francesco Filelfo, Pier Candido Decembrio, Gasparino Barzizza and Antonio da Rho. In the last years of the Visconti seigniory, similarly to what happened in Florence, there were then the first hints of the new Renaissance art with the work of Masolino da Panicale in Castiglione Olona. The end of the Gothic period is thus indicatively made to coincide with the collapse of the Visconti seigniory in 1447, with a late Gothic style that would be grafted onto the early central Italian Renaissance period giving rise to the Lombard Renaissance.
Art of the sixteenth century
The Milanese art scene of the second half of the 16th century must be analyzed by considering the particular position of the city: while for the Spanish Empire it represented a strategic military outpost, from the religious point of view it was at the center of the conflict between the Catholic and Reformed Churches. Consequently, the greatest contribution was made by religious art in the face of less civil artistic and architectural production. While in adopting the Mannerist style the city's patrons and artists had as a point of reference examples of central-Italian derivation, the city's location near Protestant Switzerland made Milan one of the main centers of the flowering and elaboration of Counter-Reformation art, thanks to the widespread action of St. Charles Borromeo. Domenico Giunti from Tuscany and Galeazzo Alessi from Perugia were the first architects to break away from the Lombard late Renaissance tradition. To the former are due the church of San Paolo Converso and the church of Sant'Angelo, set according to the same construction scheme of a single nave with side chapels with a barrel-vaulted roof, a citation of Alberti's Basilica of Sant'Andrea already found in Bramante's church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro. Vincenzo Seregni's first work in Milan, excluding his apprenticeship in the Fabbrica del Duomo, was instead in the reconstruction of the church of San Vittore al Corpo in a collaboration with Alessi. Alessi continued in his Counter-Reformation program with the construction of the new church of San Barnaba for the Barnabite fathers, an order that had recently been created to encourage the spread of the Tridentine doctrine: the single-nave interior layout can be considered one of the first attempts at a "basilica of the Reformation."
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