Bramante at Santa Maria by San Satiro in Milan ( Discovering Milan 3 ( Discovering Milan 3 )

This video for yesmilano.com will make you discover a surprising complex of buildings, hidden in the heart of Milano, and little known in spite of being close to the world-famous Duomo. It is the Church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro. Many great artists left their mark in the construction and decoration of it.

An Italian edition of this video is available also on Andrea Rui’s YouTube Channel . The English text and narrating voice are those of Carlo Rolle, whose YouTube channel deals with ancient and medieval history.

Behind the simple façade of a church half-hidden by a curtain of buildings, you can find a little-known gem of the Lombard Renaissanc: an amazing trompe l’oeil painted by Donato Bramante.

Towards the end of the XV century, the young architect was put in charge of the construction of a new church around an image of the Virgin, considered miraculous because it had shown signs of bleeding after being hit with a knife. This sacred image, was painted on a wall near to the ancient sacellum of San Satiro.
In 1483, the main parts of the new church had been completed. The area made available to Bramante for the construction was limited by houses and by a road, called Contrada del Falcone.
Bramante built a church with a T-shaped ground plan, a large central nave and two lateral aisles that extended to the transept, but he did not have room to build a choir. Therefore, by creating the optical illusion of depth with the artifice of perspective, he painted a trompe l’oeil of a choir, creating the illusion of a nave also on the south side the transept.
At the crossing between the central nave and the transept, rises the cupola, illuminated by a small lantern at the top. The cupola is connected to the pillars by four pendentives. In each of them, a tondo shows one of the four Evangelists, painted by Bramantino. The decorative band at the base of the cupola is marked by tondi in terracotta with busts of prophets, a work by Agostino de Fondulis.

The overall pictorial project for the church was entrusted to Ambrogio Bergognone, who also intervened directly on several paintings. On the right side of the church is the octagonal sacristy built on two levels. On the upper level, there is a loggia with double-arched windows, illuminated by small circular openings. The sacristy receives light also from eight large windows in the cupola and from the skylight.
In 1871, architect Vandoni completed the church’s façade, which had been left unfinished until then.

The history of the church of Santa Maria is closely related to that of the sacellum of San Satiro, next to the left transept of the church. The sacellum was built at the end of the IX century by the Archbishop of Milan, Ansperto da Biassono, as a private chapel together with a cell for the monks of the monastery of Sant’Ambrogio and with an hospice for sick and poor people and for the pilgrims.
The ground plan of the sacellum has the form of a Greek cross inserted into a square. Its architecture reminds us of Byzantine architecture but also of the chapel of Sant'Aquilino in the basilica of San Lorenzo in Milan. In 1400, the sacellum was restored, probably in accordance with a project of Leonardo da Vinci.

The church tower is on four levels, separated by indented ledges and hanging arches. Its openings become larger on the upper floors, up to the elegant double-arched window of the belfry. Built in the XI century, this is Milan’s oldest church tower, after that of Sant’Ambrogio and it used to be a landmark for pilgrims in search of hospitality.