Sant'Eustorgio

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Sant'Eustorgio, Milan. State of the facade from 1906.

Sant'Eustorgio is a church in the south of the old town of Milan that has existed since early Christian times .

Patronage

Eustorgius I was bishop of Milan from 344. According to a legend of the 12th century, he brought the relics of the Three Kings from Constantinople, donated by the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine II , to Milan. Athanasios III. of Alexandria praised him as an opponent of Arianism , St. Ambrosius called him a confessor . His veneration as a saint is limited to the area in which the Ambrosian rite is distributed , such as Lombardy .

history

At a meeting place and burial place of early Christians outside the Roman city, on the road to Pavia , a chapel was built before 313, which was enhanced by the relics obtained by Eustorgius and which took his name after the bishop's burial (around 349). In the early Romanesque period, around 1034, the chapel was almost completely rebuilt, and since the 11th century at the latest, the canons became a monastery (1068 Vallombrosans, 1218 to 1798 Dominicans). After the conquest of Milan by Barbarossa , the Three Kings relics were carried to Cologne in 1164 . The canonization of Peter of Verona, buried in Sant'Eustorgio, increased its importance. The campanile was built from 1297 to 1309, and Michelozzo built the Portinari chapel at the apex of the choir as the most important chapel extension by 1468. The baroque transformation from 1742 was reversed around 1960.

Apse, campanile and Portinari chapel

Building description and equipment

Exterior construction

The broadly proportioned brick facade is the result of a thorough restoration carried out between 1863 and 1867, which took up forms of the Lombard Romanesque and also integrated remnants of early architectural sculptures. The campanile can be seen better from the square on the east side. The chronological progress of construction on this tallest historic bell tower in Milan can be read from the arched friezes on the substructure to the Gothic decorative motifs on the upper floors. To the left of it you can see the herringbone-like walled strips ( Opus spicatum ) of the apse built around 1034, the oldest parts of the rising masonry. A short wing of the building leads to the Portinari Chapel with its cube-shaped basement, the corner tabernacles and the domed drum with round windows under the narrow lantern .

Central nave

Interior

The breadth of the early Romanesque building, which replaced an older atrium around 1034 and existed until around 1275, can be seen on the first three south aisle bays. The side aisle yokes to the east in the south are transversely rectangular, so the vaults of the main and side aisles have almost the same apex height and turn the room into a hall church . The difference between Romanesque block capitals with flat leaf relief and the Gothic ring capitals with tongue-shaped leaves made after 1227 is clear in the capital sculpture.

Side chapels

  • Starting with the first chapel on the south side: burial chapel of Marchese Paolino Brivio († 1484), a stylistically uniform dome of the early Renaissance with its furnishings: relief band decorations, triptych by Bergognone around 1500.
  • Burial chapel for Pietro Torelli , added in 1424. Wall grave for Pietro's son, who fell in 1416 and had himself kneeling in the middle of the row of niches in front of Mary, saints on the side, all sculptures in the soft styles of the early 15th century. Altar from 1733 and frescoes from the middle of the 17th century.
  • The Crotto Chapel, built around 1420–1464, remodeled in the 16th and 18th centuries.
  • Matteo I , who had strengthened his leading dynasty in Milan from 1297, had the Visconti Chapel built as a burial place for his family. Bonino da Campione completed the 8.70 m high, typically Lombard wall tomb for his brother and his family around 1360.
  • The chapel, which was dedicated to the Dominican saint Vincent Ferrer in 1589 , is followed by a second Visconti grave chapel with a wall grave for Gaspare Visconti († 1434).
  • The last chapel, built before 1277, served as the burial place of the Torriani family , bitter enemies of the Visconti, the latter allowed a rededication for their condottiere Giorgio Aricardi (Scaramucchia) in 1415.
  • The extent to which the Milanese mourned the relics of the Three Kings is shown by the furnishings in the Cappella dei Magi in the last southern side yoke, which only suggests an arm of the transept (crossing and north transept are missing). A late Roman sarcophagus is said to have been used to transport the relics from Constantinople to Milan and was therefore considered a relic of contact; the three-gabled altarpiece made of marble by a sculptor from Pisa was donated in 1347 by a brotherhood that had only been constituted for the veneration of the Three Kings in 1308, when the relics had long since been in Cologne; three small panel pictures (around 1600) depict this overpass.
Tomb of Peter Martyr in the Portinarikapelle
  • The Portinari Chapel behind the choir, the most important building of the early Renaissance in Milan, is of particular importance. The master builder and sculptor Michelozzo di Bartolommeo brought the strict lines and geometric rigor of this central building with him from Florence , where he was able to study the rationality of Filippo Brunelleschi's architecture , for example in his closely comparable Pazzi Chapel , completed in 1461 . The Milan building, which was built between 1462 and 1468, was commissioned by Pigello Portinari , who in 1452 sent a representative from Florence to Milan for the Medici's financial affairs there . Hardly less important is the high tomb for Petrus von Verona (Petrus Martyr) by the sculptor Giovanni di Balduccio , which is freely placed in the room . “The work, signed in 1339, is one of the most outstanding achievements of Trecentesque sculpture in Lombaredei, and at the same time the highlight in the series of Gothic grave sculpture in Eustorgios Church”. Eight allegories of the virtues carry the actual sarcophagus, which is surrounded by a series of eight reliefs on the life of the saint. Stylistic recourse to antiquity ( caryatids , individualization, expression) point to the Renaissance.

Choir and crypt

The early Romanesque masonry from 1034 is also visible on the inside of the apse.

The marble retable of the high altar is placed high on the Latvian-like wall in front of the choir, the crucifixion is accompanied by eight reliefs of the Passion story, Lombard around 1400. Here are the entrances to the hall crypt, which was expanded in 1537.

Epiphany

Even after the loss of the relics of the Three Kings, Sant'Eustorgio remained the center of Milanese veneration of the Three Kings. In 1903, the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Anton Fischer, returned a small part of the relics to Sant'Eustorgio, where they are venerated in the Cappella dei Magi. Every year on January 6th, Epiphany , a scenic parade, the Corteo dei Magi , leads from the forecourt of the cathedral to Sant'Eustorgio. The tradition goes back to medieval origins and is still one of the favorite events of the Milanese, with thousands lining the path.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schomann, p. 296
  2. ^ Hans Hofmann: The return of parts of the Epiphany relics from Cologne to Milan 1903-1904 ; in: Yearbook of the Cologne History Association 46 (1975), pp. 51–72
  3. ↑ Corteo dei Magi (Church website, Italian)

literature

  • Heinz Schomann: Lombardy. (Reclam's Art Guide Italy I, 1) Stuttgart 1981, pp. 287-297.

Web links

Commons : Sant'Eustorgio  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 45 ° 27 '14.4 "  N , 9 ° 10' 52.8"  E