Photo Pest: Saint Sebastian

Monday, October 6, 2025

Inspiring Versace

I almost missed it. If the Museo del Novocento had been open on Mondays as indicated on the website, I wouldn't have gone to the Biblioteca Pinacoteca Ambrosiana where Gianni Versace supposedly found the inspiration for his Medusa logo, at least according to the guard who was otherwise unable to help identify the striking bust.

Visitors exit through the back door where a statue honors Cardinal Federico Borromeo who established the library early in the 17th century to encourage Counter-Reformation scholarship.

The library was one of the first in Europe to open its doors to the public. Cardinal Borromeo, also known for his acts of charity, exhibited his personal art collection in an adjoining building he had constructed for that purpose. He and the subsequent curators of the museum certainly had an eye for talented expression of religious devotion.

"Madonna of the Pavilion" by Botticelli (15th century)

Saints Peter Martyr & Christopher
by Ambrogio Bergognone (15th century)

Saint Sebastian
by Bartolomeo Vivarini (15th century)

"The Resurrection of Christ"
by Girolamo da Cotignola (16th century)

"The Infant Jesus with a Lamb"
by Bernardino Luini (early 16th century)

Here are two more examples of my grisly taste in Bible stories.

"The Head of John the Baptist"
(Lombard painter, early 16th century)

"Head of St. John the Baptist"
by Antonio Solario (late 15th-early 16th centuries)

Who knew that preliminary sketches got this big? The Vatican commissioned Raphael to paint "The School of Athens," a fresco to decorate the rooms of the Apostolic Palace in Rome. Plato and Aristotle are faintly visible at the top of the stairs, surrounded by a Who's Who of ancient Greece (and geometry class). Leonardo da Vinci served as the model for Plato, one of several "cameos" by Raphael's Renaissance peers.

More than a few works by Jan Brueghel, one of my favorite painters, came as a welcome surprise. It appears that Cardinal Borromeo was a fanboy, too.

"Allegory of Water" (late 15th-early 16th centuries)

"Vase of Flowers with Jewel, Coins and Shells"
(late 15th-early 16th centuries)

"Mouse with Roses"
(late 15th-early 16th centuries)

"Daniel in the Lions' Den" (late 15th-early 16th centuries)

Secular stained glass windows illuminate the room that houses the Medusa bust.

Statues line the interior courtyard.

Now this is what I would call a GRAND staircase. Don't tell the Instagrammers!

Palm trees were as an important a decorating motif at the Biblioteca Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

. . . as they are at the Folly.

Sometimes when you discover someone new, he appears to be everywhere you look afterward.

Self Portrait by Antonio Canova
(late 18th-early 19th centuries)

Da Vinci is well represented in the collection.

"Portrait of a Musician"
by Leonardo da Vinci (late 15th-early 16th centuries)

Pages from the Codex Atlanticus, his twelve-volume set of scientific drawings and writings from 1478 to 1519, are on illuminated display.

My ticket also included admission to the Crypt of San Sepolcro, constructed more than a thousand years ago as a repository for soil brought back by victorious Christians from the Crusades.

A later member of the Borromeo clan, Charles, used it as the "gymnasium of the Holy Spirit" while he was Archbishop of Milan. I'm pretty sure I would have been more simpatico with Federico.

He started to renovate it, too, with the construction of 24 chapels illustrated with frescoes depicting the Passion, a project that never was completed.

Oliviero Rainaldi created "Ambrosian Shroud," a site-specific, backlit marble sculpture for the crypt in 2025.

More Northern Italy

Abstract Italy

Arte di Strada

Meet Some Italianos

Window Shopping, Italian Style

Florence

My Renaissance Playlist

What Would Bill Think?

The Brunelleschi Dome

Hunky Director

Thumbs Up & Thumbs Down

Bologna

$100 Baloney Sandwich

Let's Do The MAMbo!

Piazza Maggiore

So Many Churches, So Little Time

Trieste

Venice

Canals, Gondolas & Bridges

Size Matters in La Serenissima

Ungepatchke House of Worship

Milan

Sunday in the Park with Jeff

Albino Porcupine

Would it be any less irreverent if I described Milan's Duomo as a marble pincushion? Its uniqueness begs for metaphor. In either case, a celestial being who sat on its glorious pinnacles definitely would cry "ouch!"

Yet again in Catholic Italy, I was awestruck, even before ascending or entering. Only four churches in the world are bigger.

The installation of elevators in the 20th century made it possible for tourists to walk on the terrace and roof where the laborers who began building the cathedral in the 14th century probably thought only angels ever would tread. Everyone must walk down, however.

Napoleon put his force behind the completion of the facade in 1805 so that he could be crowned king of Italy inside but construction of the church didn't end until 1965. God created earth in seven days; it took Italians six centuries to finish the Duomo.

The intricacy of design is crazy, completed with only the most basic of tools: the human brain. Truly marvelous. Critical opinion about the architecture differed in the 19th century; John Ruskin described it as stolen "from every style in the world: and every style spoiled" while Henry James was more on my page: "If it had no other distinction it would still have that of impressive, immeasurable achievement … a supreme embodiment of vigorous effort."

When I framed this view, I didn't realize I would be dining on the roof terrace across the street in just a few hours.

Look closely between the two spires and the snow-capped Alps are visible, as are the entrance and dome of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II at the center right.

Here's a close-up of one of the more than 3,400 statues (killjoy John Ruskin again: "the statues all over are of the worst possible common stonemasons’ yard species, and look pinned on for show") that decorate the cathedral, glimpsed as I ascended the worn marble stairs to the roof.

An equestrian statue of Vittorio Emanuel II dominates the Piazza del Duomo. It seems almost Lilliputian in comparison to the cathedral.

If you're wondering why all the skyscrapers in Milan seem to be so far away, here's the answer: no structure in the city's historic center can rise higher than the Madonnina, nearly 400 feet above ground. Not even Mussolini dared to defy this divine zoning regulation when he commissioned Milan's second-rate version of the Eiffel Tower which stands more than 600 feet taller. I lucked out: more often than not, mist enshrouds the Madonnina; during World War II, she remained under cover, literally, to avoid tempting bombers.

Visitors descend on the other side of the Duomo where the flying buttresses banned in Florence were perfectly illuminated by the midday sun.

The fact that this sculpture was likely to remain hidden at the time of its creation apparently mattered not to its sculptor. I suppose it's a little like having an artwork in storage at MoMA or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Possession--which confers bragging rights--is almost as gratifying as display. I once slept with a narcissistic artist who painted swirly nude images of himself; when I Googled him years later and discovered MoMA had purchased one of his works, my estimation of his talent increased significantly.

There's a lot more to see inside Milan's Duomo than Florence's.

As much as I appreciate a good tomb, transparency is a quality I can do without. Beato Andrea Carlo Ferrari was a cardinal and archbishop of Milan who advocated for greater modernity in the church which didn't always make him popular.

If I were Catholic, I definitely would have wanted to spill my guts here.

Get this: the Duomo can accommodate 40,000 worshippers at a time!

The sensibly organized Duomo museum, which snakes along a single level, includes items of greater antiquity than the cathedral.

Evangeliary Cover (Fifth Century)

"Cross of Aribet" (Milanese workshop, ca 1040)

Critters cling to some of the pinnacle tops.

Gargoyles do their job, fiercely.

Superb lighting enhances the viewing experience and exposes the sexism of religion.

"Eternal Father" by Beltramino de Zutti (1416-25)

Woman Carrying Two Children

This trip has doubled--at least--my 3D images of my favorite saint.

St. Sebastian by Pietro Antonio Solari (ca 1480-82)

Reliquary Bust of St. Sebastian by Pietro Rubini (ca 1600-04)

I don't think I've ever seen a stained glass depiction of the Tower of Babel under construction.

15th-16th Century

This replica of the Madonnina makes you realize she's a lot bigger than she looks.

Here's what the Duomo looked like half a century before my parents visited it, when the facade remained blackened by war.

Piazza del Duomo (1905-06)

Legend has it that this adolescent martyr, condemned to death by the Romans for his Christianity in the second century, was beheaded when, after being thrown to carnivorous beasts, the animals refused to eat him.