Milan’s Duomo
Fashion and fragility in stone.
The glowing marble of Milan’s Cathedral
Milan’s fashionable heart beats on the surface of the city. Before jetlag even wears off, we see a purple Ferrari parked in front of glittering shop windows. Inside a Prada boutique, we hear a Russian beauty negotiating with the clerk to add her bulging bags of prior purchases to her new Prada haul and deliver it all to her hotel suite. She busies herself unpacking the contents of last year’s designer purse into a brand new one, while her man negotiates a bank transfer to pay for it all.
Surprisingly, the fickle whims of fashion also had a hand in Milan’s famous cathedral. Before my trip I had assumed that this monumental structure had been purposefully planned and executed. Afterall, how could anyone imagine Milan without this cathedral? It would be like Paris without the Eiffel Tower or NYC without the Statue of Liberty. You feel like you know the building even before seeing it in person. The design feels preordained. Her location defined the center of the city; all of Milan spools out from her central spire and elegant marble.
However, the path of this masterpiece was not straightforward. Construction had been haphazard and stretched over an absurd 600 years, stalling for centuries at a time. Architectural design taste changed, creating a hodge-podge of competing elements. Even the exquisite white marble that cloaks the cathedral came from a plot-twist of history.
Purple Ferrari
Fashion on wheels
Vogue
Piazza
Construction
This building with its profusion of sculptures and extravagant spires had a violent beginning.
Construction began in 1386 with the demolition of three older churches which stood on the site. (The original baptistery dating from 335AD can still be seen by descending below today’s church). Construction began with unadorned bricks, typical of Lombardy churches of that era. The pivot to white marble only happened because an upstart young man in the Visconti family faked his own religious conversion as a ruse to imprison the Lord, his uncle. Notably, this family’s coat of arms depicts a dragon eating a man. With such a branding image, perhaps it was inevitable that violent treachery pruned the family tree.
Declaring himself Duke, the young man decided that the church under construction should be more grand to celebrate his rule. He turned his eye to the ever-fashionable France and had the design changed to a gothic style. Most impactful, he pledged a marble quarry in perpetuity if that flashy material were used to adorn the cathedral instead of brick. The use of his marble required digging a series of canals to transport the stone from 60 miles away. The cost overruns must have challenged feasibility a few times in those early decades.
Visconti family crest
Imagine a brick façade
Enjoying the canals today
Momentum stalled when the duke died and his heirs squabbled away his vast land holdings. Over 130 years passed before construction turned to the roof. By then, all things gothic and French were passé. The cupola went up in a more current and restrained Renaissance style. However, in this city of fashion, everything old becomes new again. Before the roof could be completed, Neo-Gothic was all the rage (the Renaissance was “so 16th century!”) Flying buttresses and exuberant gargoyles proliferated into a city of their own on the church roof.
Construction stalled again. The Italians have an expression for work that never get done as a job “like the construction of the cathedral.” It took the ambition and ego of Napoleon to prod the façade to completion in the 1800s. He wanted his anointment as the “King of Italy” held at the Duomo. The unfinished cathedral did not fit the image of “His Imperial and Royal Majesty.” A legacy of Napoleon’s involvement can be seen on the roof. One of the “saints” looks remarkably like Napoleon.
While Napoleon accelerated work and achieved a completed façade, the great building was still not considered complete until 1965. In those ensuing years, the cathedral survived additional existential threats. One of the most severe dangers was war. Every Italian involved in the cathedral shared the miracle of how WW2 bombs landed perilously close to the church, but did not damage it. This antidote, offered within five minutes of chatting, seemed to be offered as proof of the inviolable nature of the church. That it would always be here as the style icon of this fashionable city.
However, maintaining her beauty and her very existence requires constant vigilance from the association that has been charged with her construction and care for over 600 years. The “factory of the church” continually quarries new marble to repair and replace damaged pieces. The beautiful marble, bequeathed by the treacherous Visconti Duke, contains a fatal flaw. Iron veins run through the pink-tinged marble. This metal material can rust and shatter the stone. The modern onslaught of pollution and climate change accelerate the instability of these self-destructive fault lines. Nothing about the cathedral’s existence has been certain.
The Duke still watches over his cathedral
Learning about the fragile nature the stone and the perilous path to completion over 600 years that included regime changes, funding gaps and wars makes it even more beautiful. Graceful spires defy gravity as they soar to heaven. Light from the sun and the moon take turns dancing on the marble, mutable color on the walls. The carvings on every surface, fruit and birds surrounding the saints, pulsate with life.
Ever Fashionable
Today, people celebrate the cathedral’s beauty by posing with it in photos. Her piazza provides ample room to admire all sides of the cathedral, but the Instagram action peaks at the front façade. Starting at dawn before the crowds, the most dedicated fashionistas wheel in suitcases filled with make-up and outfit changes. Boyfriends trail behind, carrying lightboxes and cameras. Professional dancers hit their pose and get the shot quickly. Groups of girlfriends coordinate their gowns and giggle with delight when they scatter waves of pigeons into the air in time with the swooping of their bilious skirts.
The cathedral seems to embrace her role as both a place of worship and as a fashion icon by marketing a fragrance line. I have never seen a church with a bespoke perfume before and sample the scent of incense and cedarwood. The brochure claims the scent captures “the emotion of being in the center of art everywhere.” Being there, surrounded by the joyful, dynamic, and improbable beauty of the cathedral, it does feel like the center of art, everywhere.
