MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 4 The Trivulzio candelabrum in the sixteenth century: documents and hypotheses by SILVIO LEYDI TH E TRIVU LZIO CANDE LABRUM , a masterpiece of medieval art, looms over five metres high and four metres wide in the left transept of Milan Cathedral. This complex and mysterious object, the largest seven-branched medieval bronze candelabrum to have come down to us, is conventionally dated to 1200 (Fig.1). Despite its singularity it is certainly indebted to the candelabrum at Reims, dated around 1150 (or at least the part of the base that survives) and, more generally, to other earlier surviving seven-branched candelabra in the North Rhine (Essen Minster, 970–1010, complete) and Lower Saxony (Braunschweig Cathedral, 1170, complete), and also in Austria (Klosterneuburg Abbey, 1136, missing its base) and Prague Cathedral (c.1162, only the base survives). While sources attest to many other medieval candlesticks in England, France and Germany, all that remains are vague descriptions. The seven branches of the Trivulzio candelabrum rest on a base formed of four winged dragons (each cast in one piece), which are linked together by four sections of vine tendrils and fantastic animals; low down on each of these four sections are two biblical scenes; in the centre, two Virtues in triumph over personifications of the Vices; and above are three signs of the zodiac (Fig.3). All the dragons’ tails are twisted around themselves and give rise to another tendril housing one of the Liberal Arts (Rhetoric, Dialectic, Geometry and Music) and a male figure, usually interpreted as a river god. The complexity of the figurative work and its possible interpretation has no parallel in other medieval candelabra, nor has any other work of this kind come down to us complete in every part. Everybody agrees that the classicism and naturalism of some of the elements on the base are exceptional, so much so that attempts to date it have ranged from the early thirteenth century to the High Renaissance.1 The candelabrum arrived at Milan Cathedral in the mid-sixteenth century, but its origins remain obscure: there is no authoritative account of its manufacture or of its history in the first three and a half centuries of its existence. Even limiting ourselves to the 1. The Trivulzio candelabrum. c.1200, with additions of the mid-sixteenth century. Bronze with inlaid gemstones, approx. 5 by 4 m. (Milan Cathedral). I would like to thank those people who have generously helped in my work on this article: Fabio Bertelli, Elisabetta Bianchi, Ernesto Brivio, Laura Cavazzini, Fulvio Cervini, Thierry Crepin-Leblond, Roberto Fighetti, Amalia Pacia, Stefania Palladino, Richard Schofield, Jeremy Warren and Susanna Zanuso. Particular thanks are also due to the Fabbrica del Duomo, Milan, and Andrea Bacchi and Aldo Galli who invited me to speak about the candelabrum’s cinquecento vicissitudes at the study day Scultura in Veneto e in Lombardia 1440–1580 organised by the Università di Trento in October 2008. The following abbreviations are used throughout the article: ACMM: Archivio del Capitolo Metropolitano, Milan; AFT: Archivio Famiglia Trivulzio; AGS: Archivo General, Simancas; ASBASM, Archivio della Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e Storici, Milan; ASDM: Archivio Storico Diocesano, Milan; ASM: Archivio di Stato, Milan; ASMn: Archivio di Stato, Mantua; AVFDM: Archivio della Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, Milan; BAM: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan; BNBM: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milan; and BTM: Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan. The Annali della Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano (Milan 1877–85) are cited as Annali. 1 Fifty years ago a detail from the candlestick caused the young Enrico Castelnuovo some embarrassment when Roberto Longhi passed a photograph of it around his students: ‘Quel che vedevamo quel giorno era lo splendido nudo di una sorta di satiro avviluppato nei grovigli di un cespo d’acanto. Eravamo stupefatti e incerti di fronte a questo intreccio di classicismo spinto, che ci faceva pensare al Riccio [. . .]. Vedevamo bene che doveva trattarsi di un’opera medievale in bronzo, ma di un’opera che aveva caratteri così singolari e apparentemente contraddittori che ci coglievano impreparati. [. . .] Il nostro stupore e la nostra sorpresa mostravano chiaramente che non conoscevamo uno dei grandi capolavori dell’arte medievale europea che si trovava in Italia [. . .] esposto al pubblico’; E. Castelnuovo: ‘I misteri di un candelabro’, in Il Candelabro Trivulzio nel Duomo di Milano (hereafter cited as Il Candelabro), Milan 2000, p.15. 2 O. von Falke: ‘Französische Bronzen des XII Jahrhunderts’, Jahrbuch der Preussichen Kunstsammlungen 43/2 (1922), pp.47–59; and idem: ‘Der Bronzeleuchter des Mailänder Dom’, Pantheon 7 (1931), pp.127–33 and 196–202; G.A. dell’Acqua: ‘Visto da vicino: il Candelabro Trivulzio’, Emporium 88 (1938), pp.59–72; M. Cinotti: ‘Tesoro e arti minori’, in Il Duomo di Milano, Milan 1973, II, pp.233–302; and S. Zuffi: ‘Un’ipotesi per il candelabro Trivulzio’, Arte documento 5 (1993), pp.78–85. 3 O. Homburger: Der Trivulzio-Kandelaber. Ein Meisterwerk fruegotischer Plastik, Zürich 1949; reviewed by T.S.R. Boase: THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 94 (1952), p.60; and C.C. Oman: Apollo 56 (1952), pp.53–55. 4 P. Bloch: ‘Siebenarmige Leuchter in christlichen Kirchen’, Wallraf-Richartz 4 j a nuar y 2 01 1 • cl iiI • t he bur l ingt on ma gaz ine MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 5 THE TRIVULZIO CANDELABRUM essential bibliography of recent decades, the sheer number of hypotheses as to its origins is remarkable. Three lines of approach can be distinguished: that it originates in the Meuse region or Lorraine,2 that it is English,3 or that it is entirely Lombard (but with Mosan influences);4 however, almost all scholars date it around 1200, at the latest to 1210. Opinion is also divided about the homogeneity of the object; while there is general agreement that the base up to the knop with the Journey of the Magi is mostly medieval, some believe it to be the work of two (or even three) masters, one older, the other (or others) younger and more up to date, which accounts for the fact that the design and casting of various sections are stylistically inconsistent. The stem and the branches are more often said to be later than 1200, sometimes much later, even sixteenth century, and the same applies to the first knop immediately above the base, which is smooth. Only Diego Sant’Ambrogio, at the end of the nineteenth century, proposed that part of the base dated from the sixteenth century and was cast in France, a hypothesis that has never been followed up.5 In 2000 Fulvio Cervini proposed an Anglo-Norman provenance for the candelabrum, supporting his thesis with examples of stylised plant forms from twelfth-century English paintings and miniatures and from the paintings still visible in the little church of Saint-Julien at Le Petit-Quevilly (now in the suburbs of Rouen but in the late twelfth century in the open countryside).6 The principal building there was originally a hunting lodge constructed for Henry II Plantagenet but was later transformed into a hospital; the decoration of its chapel can be dated between 1183 and 1190 (Fig.2) and displays all the ‘vegetable’ themes found on the candelabrum, themes that were already present in twelfth-century English book illumination. Basing his work on unpublished documents in the Fabbrica del Duomo (Office of the Cathedral Works), Cervini also reached the conclusion that the candelabrum had arrived in Milan in 1550 as the gift of the Archipresbyter Giovanni Battista Trivulzio, having been transported from France by Giovan Andrea Annoni,7 and that it was finally erected in its present position, at the entrance to the left transept, on 25th March 1562 (as the inscription on the marble plinth would suggest),8 in compliance with an order of the Fabbrica of November 1561.9 In the following four and a half centuries the candelabrum underwent various campaigns of cleaning, restoration and the reattachment of stones, but its original medieval form was substantially preserved. Now, thanks to the discovery of some unpublished documents in the archive of the Fabbrica del Duomo, it is possible to give a more complete account of the story of Trivulzio’s gift. Jahrbuch 23 (1961), pp.55–190; and P.C. Claussen: ‘Il portale del Duomo di Genova. Lo stile internazionale all’antica a Genova e Milano’, in V. Pace and M. Bagnoli, eds.: Il Gotico europeo in Italia, Naples 1994, pp.89–108. 5 D. Sant’Ambrogio: ‘L’albero della Vergine o Candelabro Trivulzio nella Cattedrale di Milano’, Il Politecnico 40 (1892), pp.51–57 and 117–23. In 1776 Francesco Bartoli, in discussing the altar of the Madonna dell’Albero in the left transept of the Cathedral, stated that ‘il gran Candelabro di bronzo qui in faccia, è del Brambilla’. While this is impossible chronologically, since Francesco Brambilla is first mentioned working in the Cathedral in the early 1570s, it could record some memory of the candlestick being remade in the sixteenth century; see F. Bartoli: Notizia delle pitture, sculture, ed architetture, che ornano le chiese, e gli altri luoghi pubblici di tutte le più rinomate città d’Italia . . ., Venice 1776, I, p.157. 6 F. Cervini: ‘Alberi di luce. Il Candelabro Trivulzio nella cultura medievale’, in Il Candelabro, pp.19–115. 7 AVFDM, Registri 332, fol.116, 20th September 1550: payment of 19 lire and 9 soldi to Andrea Annoni; see Annali, III, p.321. The same payment is recorded in AVFDM, Registri 408, fol.64. 8 The inscription reads: ‘IO[hannes]. BAPT[ista]. TRIVULTIUS HU[ius] ECCL[esiae] ARCHIP[res]B[ite]B D[ono] D[edit] // PRAEFECTI FABRICAE PERFECER[unt] ET HIC 2. Detail from a mural painting at Saint-Julien, Le Petit-Quevilly (near Rouen). 1183–90. On 20th September 1550, Giovan Andrea Annoni was paid the sum of 19 lire and 9 soldi ‘pro resto conducte candelabri magni lotoni conducti a partibus Galie Mediaolano’ (‘the remainder [of the payment] for transporting the large brass candelabrum from France to Milan’). The principal payment, dated 25th October 1549, provides some important additional information. Under the heading ‘various expenses’: ‘249 imperial lire to Giovanni Andrea Annoni for transporting a large brass candelabrum from the city of Rouen to Milan, a gift offered to the aforementioned Fabbrica by the late and most reverend master Battista Trivulzio, archipresbyter of the said principal church . . .’.10 The same payment of 1549 is also recorded in the corresponding Libro Mastro, with one additional detail, that the candelabrum in question was ‘cum ramis’, with branches, which leaves no possible doubt as to its identification.11 Therefore the large ‘brass’ candelabrum came from Rouen, which would reinforce Cervini’s hypothesis of its AngloNorman origin (until 1204 the Duchy of Normandy belonged to the English crown), even if three and a half centuries of silence separate the making of the candelabrum from its documented presence in Rouen, the chief river port for trade between France and Northern Italy. Here it is necessary to present the two chief characters in this story, Giovan Battista Trivulzio and Giovanni Andrea Annoni. Trivulzio was born around 1508;12 at the end of 1528 or the beginning of 1529 he married Caterina (daughter of Bernardino and Susanna Cusani),13 but his bride died soon afterwards, perhaps in childbirth.14 In 1540 Giovan Battista was Archipresbyter of Milan Cathedral, replacing his brother Carlo Antonio who had held this lucrative post since at least 1538, if not 1536. PO[suerunt] VIII C[alendae] APR[ilis] MDLXII’. 9 AVFDM, Ordinazioni Capitolari XI, fol.396, 24th November 1561: the Prefetti ‘. . . ordinaverunt et ordinant quod expensis praefatae fabrice aptetur illud candelabrum praefatae fabricAe dono datum per illos de Trivulzio, et aptatum ponatur in praefata majore ecclesia in illo loco ordinando per praefatum dominum Nicolaum Predam et praefatum magnificum dominum Johannem Castronovatum’; Annali, IV, p.46. 10 AVFDM, Registri 407, fol.158: ‘Pro capitulo diversarum expensarum, libre ducentum quadraginta novem imperialis Domino Jo. Andree de Annono pro conducta unius candelabri lotoni magni a civitate Rouani Mediolano, dono dati praedicte fabrice per nunc quondam Reverendissimum Dominum Baptistam Triultium archipresbiterum praedicta maioris Ecclesiae . . .’. 11 AVFDM, Registri 331A, fol.391; G. Benati: ‘Nuova acquisizione documentaria sul candelabro Trivulzio del Duomo di Milano’, in Arte e storia di Lombardia. Scritti in memoria di Grazioso Sironi, Florence 2006, pp.243–46. 12 According to the act of emancipation that records his age as twenty-two in 1530; ASM, Notarile 6522, 4th July 1530. 13 In Caterina’s dowry, drawn up on 27th May 1529 (ASM, Notarile 5540), it is stated that the marriage had been celebrated about four months earlier. 14 Caterina was apparently still living on 22nd June 1529 (ASM, Notarile 8076) but was dead by 4th August 1530 (ASM, Notarile 6522). t he bu rl ingt on magaz ine • cl iiI • j an uary 2 011 5 MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 6 THE TRIVULZIO CANDELABRUM His presence in Milan must have been only sporadic since from August 1539 until his death he entrusted his Milanese business affairs to his father, Urbano, and his brothers Gaspare and Carlo Antonio, as we know from a document of power of attorney drawn up in Rome by the apostolic notary Giacomo Vincenzo Vigoni (who was a close associate of Cardinal Agostino Trivulzio).15 Presumably Giovan Battista was part of the circle around his powerful distant cousin; Luca Contile, writing from Rome to Sigismondo d’Este in 1541, recounted how, going to visit the Cardinal – whose secretary he was – he found there ‘Master Giovan Battista Trivulzio, a good man on account of his simplicity and pleasant on account of his ignorance’.16 This would explain Giovan Battista’s residence in Rome and the necessity of entrusting his Milanese affairs to procurators.17 He only reappeared in Milan at the beginning of November 1548, en route for France.18 It would seem likely that this journey was linked to the death of Cardinal Agostino (who died in Rome on 30th March 1548)19 and to the Cardinal’s will,20 although this is not directly documented. However, a power of attorney was drawn up early in March 1549 by Gaspare Trivulzio for his brother Giovan Battista (who was not present when it was drawn up) to recuperate from the King of France or from his treasurers an annual pension of 400 francs, which had been granted to him from December 1546 by King Francis I, who had subsequently died; this leaves little doubt that the Archipresbyter was at that time already in France and in direct contact with the court of Henry II.21 Although no details of his journey are known, the candelabrum could have been sent from Rouen, where the bishop’s palace was run by Cardinal Georges II d’Amboise, the close associate of Agostino Trivulzio, or perhaps from Bayeux, the late cardinal’s episcopal seat (which could have been where the candelabrum was originally kept).22 Giovan Battista died in France between March and July 1549. Giovan Andrea Annoni, who died in 1565, was a very different figure, the head of a flourishing import/export company working between Flanders and Italy, with offices in Antwerp, Basel, Lisbon, Milan, Venice, Genoa and Ancona, the principal importer of northern European goods into Lombardy. To concentrate only on his dealings with works of art, in 1527 Giovan Andrea was involved in transporting two bronze statues from Venice to Lyon (which were sold in 1551 to Nicolò Secco, Capitano di Giustizia in Milan), and in 1546 he was paid by agents of Cardinal Agostino Trivulzio for an undertaking about which nothing is known;23 after transporting the candelabrum in 1549, in 1560 he received in Milan, via Genoa, a large painted and gilded altarpiece in carved wood with Scenes of the Passion of Christ for the family chapel in the church of S. Giorgio at Annone di Brianza,24 now on deposit in the Museo Diocesano, Milan, from his brother Giovan Angelo (resident in Antwerp). Given that the candelabrum transported by Annoni in 1549 was the Trivulzio candelabrum and that it came from Rouen as the gift of Giovan Battista Trivulzio, we can now attempt to settle the question of where it was during its first fifty years in 15 The notarial documents have so far not been traced; the power of attorney, drawn up on 8th August 1539, is, however, recorded in various documents: see, for instance, the legal document of transfer of 30th April 1541 in which Carlo Antonio Trivulzio concedes to Gerolamo Brivio a credit of 120 lire that Giovan Battista held in respect of Dionigi Rastelli for land rented at Locate (ASM, Notarile 10921). 16 ‘. . . messer Giovan Battista Trivultio, huomo da bene per semplicità e piacevole per ignoranza’; L. Contile: Delle Lettere, Pavia 1564, 28th February 1541, fols.4v–5r. 17 In the act of taking possession of the goods and the ecclesiastical income of Giovan Battista after his death made by Marco Antonio Patanella, administrator of the ecclesiastical property of Milan, one reads that many benefices in the form of canonries and prebendaries devolved to him: ‘nomine familiaritatis qua predictus defunctus habebat cum Reverendissimo domino Cardinali Triultio’ (ASM, Notarile 8441, 22nd July 1549). 18 On 1st November 1548 Giovan Battista was in Milan, present at the signing of the power of attorney that his sister Camilla granted him to resolve a problem of inheritance (ASM, Notarile 10363). 19 Son of Giovanni and Angela Martinengo, he was born before 1480, created cardinal in 1517 and died in Rome on 30th March 1548. The owner of a palace in S. Maria Vallicella in Roma and of the villa of Salone (designed by Baldassarre Peruzzi from 1523 and decorated by Daniele da Volterra from 1536), in 1527 thanks to his family’s well-known Francophilia, he took on the post of ‘protector’ of France within the College of Cardinals, taking it over from his dead cousin Scaramuccia, but was immediately afterwards taken prisoner following the Sack of Rome. Protector of the Umiliati and the Cistercians, in 1531 he was nominated Bishop of Bayeux by King Francis I; the same year he accompanied Eleonora of Habsburg, the King’s second wife, to the altar in Saint Denis when she was crowned queen, and in 1529–30 was present at the Imperial coronation of the Emperor Charles V in Bologna and also at the meeting between Pope Paul II and the Emperor at Lucca in 1541, having resumed his role of papal legate to France in 1536. 20 The will is in ASM, Trivulzio AM 275, no.11 (an authentic copy made in 1592 by the apostolic protonotary Camillo Borghesi of Cardinal Agostino Trivulzio’s will was drawn up by the notary Giacomo Vincenzo Vigoni on 30th March 1548 when the cardinal was dying): his universal heir was his nephew Giovanni Trivulzio, son of his brother Paolo Camillo; his Roman goods were divided into three parts: one for the poor, one for members of the household and one for relations. He nominated three cardinals, Alessandro Farnese, Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, and Georges d’Armagnac, Bishop of Rodez, to ensure that his wishes were honoured and that his legacies were distributed. 21 ASM, Notarile 10363, 4th March 1549. 22 In 1259 Bishop Guido was buried in the choir of Bayeux Cathedral at the feet of a large seven-branched candlestick; see J. Remy and A. Téxier: Dictionnaire d’ofréverie, de gravure et de ciselure chrétiennes, Paris 1857, col.330; and Cervini, op. cit. (note 6), p.96. That the candlestick was exported from Rouen does not necessarily mean that it came from there originally. Thierry Crepin-Leblond has suggested that the candlestick could, for example, be identified with the ‘ancien chandelier à sept branches d’un ouvrage & d’une hauteur surprenante’ (although the sources do not specify what it 6 j a nuar y 2 01 1 • cl iiI • t he bur l ingt on ma gaz ine 3. Detail of Fig.1, showing part of the base of the Trivulzio candelabrum with the Coronation of Esther, David and Goliath, Virtues and Vices and signs of the zodiac. MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 7 THE TRIVULZIO CANDELABRUM Milan until 1600, when the goldsmith Francesco Valassina received 57 lire on account ‘for the making and cleaning of the candelabrum which stands in front of the altar of the Madonna del Arbore in that church’.25 A modest payment of fourteen lire was made on 10th March 1562 to a certain Giacomo de Brochis for making fourteen large lamps for the ‘candelabrum bronzii’ of the Cathedral; I believe that this refers to the Trivulzio candelabrum in the light of documents to be examined later.26 Also in 1562 Urbano Monti recorded that ‘Giovanni Battista Trivulzio, archipresbyter of the Cathedral of our city, gave to his church the tall bronze candelabrum which is decorated and reputed to be largely of the same design as that which was once in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, so that it would serve the Holy Sacrament, as it does’.27 Giovan Battista Casale also recorded in his diary that ‘on 24th March [1568] the bronze candelabrum which is behind the tabernacle of the high altar of the Cathedral was brought back, I say brought back: close to the wall of the altar but lower’.28 These accounts make it clear that, at least until March 1568, the Trivulzio candelabrum was placed behind the tabernacle of the high altar in the Cathedral in the ecclesiastical choir,29 raised above floor level, and that only after that date was it lowered, perhaps by the removal of a pedestal. This is confirmed by two letters, one sent to Archbishop Carlo Borromeo by Tullio Albonese on 25th March 1562 (the same as the date inscribed on the base), which informed the Archbishop that at ‘the Perdono del Domo (a religious feast of forgiveness), which was held today, a great number of people gathered [. . .] and [. . .] a beautiful candelabrum was erected to illuminate the Holy Sacrament placed in the tabernacle; the candelabrum is bronze, and is made with great skill’.30 The second letter from the Mantuan orator in Milan is even more explicit: on 23rd March 1562 he wrote to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga that ‘a great bronze candelabrum formerly given by one of the Trivulzios has been rediscovered in the Fabbrica of the cathedral; they fitted it up to light the tabernacle that His Holiness [Pope Pius IV] gave to the church; it is thought to be beautiful and of equal value to the papal gift’.31 It is not possible at present to establish when the candelabrum was moved to the left transept from the area behind the high altar, but it probably happened in the course of work that took place in the choir for the building of the scurolo (or crypt); perhaps in 1582, when the stairs behind the high altar were put out to contract, or in 1596, when Pellegrino’s great circular structure, which houses the tabernacle of Pius IV, was assembled over the high altar. On 8th April 1562 the Fabbrica del Duomo opened a new account for the repairing of the Trivulzio candelabrum,32 the cost of which eventually came to 1011 lire, 6 soldi and one denaro (see Appendix below). Apart from carving a completely new stone pedestal, the candelabrum lacked many pieces of bronze and gemstones that had been lost. Work was completed in a great hurry, as is evident from the payments made on 8th April in favour of forty-one stonemasons of the Fabbrica who were obliged to work on the two Sundays before Easter (15th and 22nd March 1562),33 while on the same day Alessandro Mascaroni received 99 lire, 4 soldi and 3 denari in payment for various expenses incurred between 4th February and 21st March.34 On 11th April Battista Manaris (or Manara) and Timoteo de Serono were paid 2½ lire ‘for having finished the pedestal on time’.35 Up to this point the documents apparently are concerned only with the marble base and Mascaroni’s unspecified work, but on 17th April the Fabbrica recorded two large payments for the refitting of the candelabrum, one to the bronze founder Giovan Antonio Busca, called il Ciocchino, and the second to the miniaturist and jeweller Battista Quatuordomibus: was made of) that was dismantled and disappeared in 1527 and 1528 from the choir of Saint-Germain-des-Prés; see J. Bouillart: Histoire de l’Abbaye Royale de SaintGermain-des-Prèz, Paris 1724, p.181. 23 ASM, Rubriche notarili 3890, notary Gerolamo Prealone, 22nd December 1546. The acts themselves were destroyed; all that remains is a note of their registration. 24 The present writer is working on a detailed study of the Annoni family, which he hopes to publish soon. 25 ‘. . . sopra la fattura et politura del Candelabero che sta nanti l’Altare della Madonna del Arbore in detta chiesa’: AVFDM, Mandati 17 (1600), 11th July; and AVFDM, Registri 349–349A–349B, fol.428, 11th July 1600. 26 AVFDM, Registri 338, fol.179. 27 ‘Giovanni Battista Trivulzio arciprete del Domo de la nostra cità donò a la sua chiesa l’alto candilero di bronzo, figurato et riputato grandemente del somigliante disegno di quello che già fù nel Tempio di Solomone in Gierusalemme, acioché servisse al santissimo sacramento, come serve’; U. Monti: Compendio di tutte le cose più nottabili sucesse alla Città di Milano [. . .] cominciando da la edifficatione del Domo, che fu l’anno 1386, sino a l’anno 1578, BAM, P 248 sup., fol.82, under the year 1562. 28 ‘. . . adì 24 de marzo [1568] fu reportà il candelero de bronzo che è da dretto al tabernaculo del altare grande del domo, reportà dico: apressa al muro del ditto altare però abasso’; see C. Marcora, ed.: ‘Giambattista Casale, Diario’, Memorie storiche della Diocesi di Milano 12 (1965), p.234. The manuscript is in BAM, Trotti 413. A note by Paolo Morigi is based on Monti’s account: ‘L’anno medesimo [1563, sic] Gioan Battista Trivulcio Arciprete del Domo della nostra città, donò un degno, et honorato candeliero alla Chiesa del domo di Milano, tutto di bronzo figurato, et riputato mirabile, et simigliante à quallo che fù già di Salomone in Gierusalemme’; he also repeats that it was a ‘gran candigliere di bronzo con sette rami’; see P. Morigi: Historia dell’antichità di Milano, Venice 1592, pp.119 (in fact 219) and 356. 29 For the tabernacle’s history, see F. Repishti: ‘Il tabernacolo di Pio IV (1561–1567)’, Civiltà Ambrosiana 15/1 (January–February 1998), pp.61–65. 30 ‘Al Perdono del Domo, quale è stato hoggi, è concorsa gran moltitudine di gente [. . .] et [. . .] è stato erretto un bellissimo candeliero per illuminar il santissimo sacramento posto nel tabernacolo, il quale candeliero è di bronzo, et in vero fatto con bello artificio’; BAM, F 120 inf, fol.159r. I am very grateful to Richard Schofield for having drawn my attention to this letter. 31 ‘Si è ritrovato nella fabrica del Duomo un gran candeliere di bronzo già donatogli da un Trivulcio; l’hano accomodato ad illuminare el tabernaculo che diede Sua Santità alla detta chiesa; è tenuto bello e di prezzo uguale al dono papale’; Pietro Giorgio Visconti to Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, 23rd March 1562, ASMn, Archivio Gonzaga 1681. 32 AVFDM, Registri 338A, fol.422. 33 Ibid.; and Registri 414, fol.10. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid.; and Registri 414, fol.13, in which the master is called a ‘giematori’. Item, the same day, 17th, 379 lire and 2 soldi to master Giovan Antonio Busca, called Ciocchino for the cost of five pieces of bronze and two figures and ‘bottoni’ [decorative knots] and foliage made and cast by him to finish the said candelabrum just placed in the said principal church before the tabernacle in that church, and all this, having deducted the 8 libbre of metal returned, amounts to a sum of 446 libbre of metal at the cost of 17 soldi per libbra, comprising metal and casting.36 Item, the same day, 226 lire, 1 soldi and 1 denari to master Battista Quaturodomibus, miniaturist, for 725 gems at a cost of 6 soldi and 4½ denari each, six coats of arms in miniature and other things valued at 35 lire, placed in the work around the candelabrum.37 t he bu rl ingt on magaz ine • cl iiI • j an uary 2 011 7 MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 8 THE TRIVULZIO CANDELABRUM 5. Detail of Fig.1: David and Goliath. 4. Detail of Fig.1: Coronation of Esther. Busca, who had worked for the Fabbrica casting bronzes (mostly bells) since 1526, did his work between February and March, as a withdrawal of almost 47 lire suggests, which was intended to pay for 73½ libbre of wax needed to create the models of the parts to be cast, and which were paid out to Cristoforo Vallotti only at the end of December.38 Finally, between April and June 1562, almost 190 lire were paid to Mascaroni for unspecified work.39 The expenses incurred by the Fabbrica del Duomo to ‘aptare’ (fit up) the candelabrum confirm that it was placed in front of the new tabernacle given by Pope Pius IV only in the spring of 1562. It is also evident that the candelabrum, which had already been in Milan for thirteen years, needed a lot of attention. Not only were all the necessary gemstones (725 pieces) bought and mounted,40 but significant parts of the candelabrum which were missing (‘que deffitiebant’) were cast in 1562 by Busca. It is difficult to identify the parts that needed to be repaired ‘pro finiendo dicti candelabri’: what are the five bronze pieces, the two figures and the knots and foliage, all modelled in wax and newly cast in the spring of 1562? For the time being we cannot say.41 Some clue as to the sixteenth-century repairs is provided by the payment for wax for the models, in which it is specified that the material was to be used to cast ‘certa capita suprascripti candelabri que deffitiebant’, which can be translated as ‘a certain part of the base of the said candelabrum that was missing’, ‘caput’ being read as the base of a tree, which greatly narrows down the section of the candelabrum in which elements were newly cast. An idea of the scale of the repairs is provided by the quantity of wax that the Cathedral provided for the models for the casts: 73½ libbre piccole, the equivalent of 24 kilos, or a volume of over 25 litres; applying the same calculation to the bronze paid for the founder – 446 libbre piccole, almost 146 kilos of metal – one obtains a volume of bronze equivalent to 16.6 litres, less than that of the wax, but one which would suggest that it was a significant undertaking. Comparing the volume of wax to that of bronze, there are 8½ litres less of metal, about 75 kilos, which, added to the 146 38 candlestick itself. The chemical and physical analysis of the Oxford pieces has not determined their origin nor provided unequivocal results as to their possible dating, which oscillates between the thirteenth and the eighteenth century. Given this uncertain chronology, and in the light of the new documents, I would like to propose that Giovan Antonio Busca was also involved in the casting of King David and Noah, which are much easier to assign to the mid-sixteenth century than to an implausible remaking of two medieval pieces in a Renaissance style in the eighteenth century. 42 The ‘loss’ (the loss of metal that occurs in the oxidisation during casting) could be estimated at between 5% and 10% of the original weight; in the Milanese area an 8% ‘loss’ was indicated for the casting of canons in 1530 at Cremona by Master Stefanino da Trezzo (ASM, Militare parte antica 51½), while the lesser amount of 6% appears in the contract drawn up with the master founders Giovanni and Pietro Cottura for the casting of guns on 3rd April 1540 (ASM, Registri delle Cancellerie dello Stato, II, 1, fols.77–78). It is much more difficult to estimate the percentage of metal that was lost in the airvents or remained in the crucible: in total a difference of about a third does not seem to be too far off the mark, especially for complex pieces. 43 When the entire base was moved to an exhibition in Zürich in 1948–49 (exh. cat.: Kunstschätze der Lombardei. 500 vor Christus/1800 nach Christus, Zürich (Das Kunsthaus) 1948, no.92), the eleven sections of the base were packed in three cases, the contents of the first (without packing), containing four sections, weighed 144 AVFDM, Registri 338A, fol.422; and Registri 414, fol.58. Ibid.; and Registri 414, fols.13 and 25. 40 It is not clear where the 725 gems for which Quatuordomibus was paid were placed: before the restoration in 1990 the candelabrum’s gemstones were analysed, a total of 595 stones, although there are 697 castoni, or housings, for the gems; see M. Superchi and A. Donini: ‘Le gemme del Candelabro Trivulzio’, in Il Candelabro, pp.169–78. The results of this analysis are entirely compatible with a mid-sixteenthcentury reworking. 41 A fascinating hypothesis, which also has the merit of clarifying the origins of four other pieces often associated with the candelabrum, might allow us to recognise the two ‘figure’ cast by Busca as those of King David and Noah in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which were, in their turn, cast from models taken from the Moses and a Prophet in the same Museum, which can certainly be dated c.1200 and which have been linked stylistically on several occasions to the Trivulzio candelabrum; see J. Warren: Catalogue of European Scupture in the Ashmolean Museum. Medieval and Early Renaissance Sculpture mainly up to 1540, Oxford, forthcoming, nos.75–78. If the text of the payment is read literally it would make good sense and could be said to list five bronze pieces, two figures (King David and Noah), the knots and foliage. It remains to be established where the four Oxford pieces could have been accommodated, perhaps at the base of the candlestick, perhaps on the pedestal, but certainly not on the 39 8 j a nuar y 2 01 1 • cl iiI • t he bur l ingt on ma gaz ine MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 9 THE TRIVULZIO CANDELABRUM 7. Detail of Fig.1: Expulsion from the Garden of Eden. 6. Detail of Fig.1: Temptation of Adam and Eve. that had been paid for, amounts to a total of 221 kilos of bronze necessary for the work. Not all the metal used in a lost-wax casting becomes part of the finished work. The difference in the volume of the wax provided for the casting models and that of the bronze financed for Busca (8.5 litres) can be explained when one considers that over 25 litres of wax were essential for the whole operation (that is the volume of the actual models and the numerous vent-holes for the casting), and the 16.6 litres of bronze paid for the mass of elements which had been finished and smoothed off (and not that of all the metal used, which would have been approximately the same as the wax, plus that left in the crucible, plus that lost during the casting of the metal).42 We know nothing of the weight of the candelabrum itself and, consequently, cannot estimate how much of it Busca remade. The only indications of the weight of the various sections have to be gleaned from records made, from time to time, when the candelabrum was moved.43 Giovan Antonio Busca, called il Ciocchino (from cioca, Milanese dialect for ‘bell’), descended from a Milanese family of bronze founders who for generations had worked for the Cathedral; he was born around 1502, the son of Gerolamo,44 and probably trained in the family workshop. His first documented works date from 1526, when he was paid by the Cathedral for casting various bells and a bronze lamb for the crozier of a statue of St Ambrose.45 Subsequently Giovan Antonio is recorded as the maker of other bells, for S. Maria presso S. Satiro (1545), for S. Gottardo in Corte (1547),46 for the Cathedral (1552 and 1553) and for S. Paolo Converso (1557), as well as a smaller bell for the Cathedral organ (1562):47 and as founder between 1559 and 1561 of four capitals and two ‘fioroni’, or large decorative flowers, for the small vault of the sacristy, and of two large capitals and another ‘fiorone’ for S. Maria presso S. Celso;48 crowning his career with the completion of the Trivulzio candelabrum in spring 1562, certainly his last work, given that he died on 30th June of that year, a little over a month after receiving payment kilos; the second, with four pieces, weighed 71 kilos; the third, with just three pieces, 110 kilos; taken together eleven pieces of the candlestick weighed a total of 325 kilos (ASBASM, posizione 4/746 C, fasc. Elenchi. The cases were numbered 66, 67 and 68). If the packing of the eleven sections had been logically planned, the first case could have contained the four dragons, the second the four linking elements with figures – smaller and therefore presumably lighter – and the third the two sections of the stem – the heaviest sections – and the smooth spherical knop. This is purely hypothetical, but if the 146 kilos of bronze paid to Busca were distributed this way, 72 kilos would have been used for the two dragons, 35.5 kilos for the elements with plant tendrils, and the rest (slightly less than 40 kilos) used for the smooth knop and other unidentified parts (the mysterious two figures, the leaves and the decorative knots). 44 Busca’s father’s name appears in many documents; his date of birth is inferred from a notarial document of 24th February 1523 in which he appears as legally independent, by which time he would have to have been over twenty years old. (ASM, Notarile 7996). His death was registered on 30th June 1562, when he was said to have been about sixty years old (ASM, Popolazione p.a. 95). 45 Annali, III, p.234, 2nd May 1526; AVFDM, Registri 320, fol.233, 7th May 1526; and Registri 395, fol.65. 46 V. Forcella: Iscrizioni delle chiese e degli altri edifici di Milano dal secolo VII ai giorni nostri, Milan 1892, XI, pp.xlv and xlvi, no.7, where the date is read as 1537 (MDXXXVII). The presence of the coat of arms of Ferrante Gonzaga (governor of Milan between 1546 and 1554) and the evident damage to part of the inscription (to which an extra ‘X’ should be added) allow us to date the bell to 1547. 47 Ibid., pp.xlvii ff., and notes 9, 10 and 11 (relative to the second bell for the Cathedral and the two for S. Paolo. In AVFDM, Registri 333, fols.336 and 407, payments are recorded both for the small bell named for S. Tecla of 1553 (now on a spire on the Cathedral), and for the medium-sized bell of 1553 (lost and substituted in 1577 by one by Dionigi Busca, still in situ). The bell of 1545 for S. Maria presso S. Satiro, unknown to Forcella, bears his signature and the date of casting: ‘Opus Antonii Busche MDXXXXV die IV novembris’; see G. Lise: Santa Maria presso San Satiro, Milan 1974, p.124; the first bell, of 1483, was made by Giovanni Maria Busca; ibid., p.118. The largest bell for S. Paolo Converso is now kept in the first chapel on the left of the neighbouring church of S. Eufemia, while the lesser bell has apparently disappeared. The bell for the Cathedral’s organ is recorded in AVFDM, Registri 414, fol.22 with a payment of 4 lire on 26th May 1562. 48 ASDM, Archivio di Santa Maria presso San Celso, Mastro 1558–76, fols.18, 26 and 36; C. Baroni: Documenti per la storia dell’architettura a Milano nel Rinascimento e nel Barocco, Florence 1940, doc. 315, 2nd February 1559; doc. 316, 23rd August 1560; and doc. 318, 12th August 1561. t he bu rl ingt on magaz ine • cl iiI • j an uary 2 011 9 MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 10 THE TRIVULZIO CANDELABRUM from the Cathedral. Married to Elisabetta del Mayno at least from the mid-1520s,49 Giovan Antonio was the father of Dionigi, Giovan Francesco and Gabriele (or Gabrio), the latter perhaps the best known of the Busca family, a military engineer, architect, arranger of ephemeral decorations and bronze founder in the service of the Savoy court from 1570. It is very likely that Busca worked independently with his workshop to prepare models for the parts of the candelabrum that had to be cast (the payment mentions bronzes ‘made and cast’ – ‘fatti e gettati’) given that no other artist was paid for the undertaking, nor did any sculptor provide Giovan Antonio with models or wax, either at the Cathedral or at other workshops. But the complexity of the iconographic programme of the candelabrum’s base suggests the involvement of someone well used to the interpretation of the scriptures who was able to specify suitable theological themes for the missing pieces. It would not have been difficult to find experts in 1562 in Milan or in the Cathedral able to explain Old Testament subjects to Busca so that he could correctly represent the various episodes with figures and incorporate them into the labyrinth of ornamental plants and animals he had devised. It still remains to clarify Alessandro Mascaroni’s role in the saga of the candelabrum. He was probably the son of the Giuseppe who, in 1543, had repaired at his own expense the chimes of the Fabbrica’s clock50 and who in 1550 was elected Treasurer of the guild of metalworkers of Milan.51 Although he normally held the position of clockmaker of the Cathedral and at the court, in 1563 he was commissioned to repair the main bell of the Cathedral,52 which proves that he had some understanding of metallurgy, while in 1578 his son, Giovan Francesco Mascaroni, was commissioned to cast a bronze figure of Christ following a design by Tibaldi, to be placed next to the Sacred Nail (‘ad sanctissimum clavum’; believed to be one of the nails of the Crucifixion) of the Cathedral in the vault above the main altar.53 Between 1573 and 1575 Alessandro Mascaroni was charged with polishing the bronzes cast by Dionigi Busca, son of Giovan Antonio, destined for the new baptistery of the Cathedral, that is 122 rosettes and four masks, and parts of the ‘Candellier di mettallo in Domo’.54 Even if it is not certain that the bronze candelabrum cited in the payment of 1574 is Trivulzio’s – although the mention of the ‘metal candelabrum in the Cathedral’ leaves little doubt – the fact that in 1573–75 Alessandro Mascaroni had polished Brusca’s bronzes might lead one to conclude that he was also asked to perform the same service in 1562, which would explain his involvement in the erection of the candelabrum and the payments he received that year. Few contemporary scholars have suggested that the candelabrum underwent significant remaking in the sixteenth century and when they have, it has always involved the branched arms.55 Diego Sant’Ambrogio’s hypothesis, that the historiated knop and parts of the base (particularly the section with the Coronation of Esther ; Fig.4) were certainly not of thirteenth-century facture but ‘considerably later given their gracefulness and the drapery of the figures, and more likely to date from the sixteenth century’,56 has been summarily dismissed. Yet starting from Sant’Ambrogio’s thesis and the payments of 1562 as well as the technical analyses made in 2000, we can begin to recognise the parts that Brusca cast. Not only did he have the candelabrum as a guide for his additions (and perhaps also parts of it that could no longer be used and no longer exist), but he was also well versed in mimetic skills – of working in an earlier style – developed in the Cathedral workshops over the centuries. In the mid-sixteenth century, the Fabbrica was fundamentally a Gothic workshop both in organisation and in spirit, with a strong desire to preserve traditions and skills which had been lost or abandoned elsewhere. Stylistically, the sections with the Coronation of Esther (Fig.4) and David and Goliath with the four winged monsters (Fig.5) and the scenes of the Temptation (Fig.6) and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden with six snakes (Fig.7), as well as the two dragons attacked by griffons and lions (Fig.8), include similar characteristics, that is, framing elements at the bottom without ‘pearl’ decoration (Fig.10), whereas the other four sections of the base have borders decorated with a frieze of palmettes and a band of gems and ‘pearls’ (Fig.11). In addition the two connecting sections of lattice-work are complicated by the insertion of fabulous creatures, dragons and snakes. One does not find such creatures elsewhere – except for the two small snakes that sink their fangs into the breast of a figure at the base of the section with the Stories of Moses (Fig.9) – and instead only vegetation forms the lattice-work which contain the biblical scenes; the flowers are also made and decorated differently. A third element common to at least three of the four parts of the base, and which distinguishes them from the rest of the candelabrum, is the metal alloy from which they are cast (the 49 53 The date is taken from a confessio drawn up by his son Dionigi Busca in the name of his mother on 4th February 1548 (ASM, Notarile 8420, no.2438): at this date Dionigi must have been at least twenty years old. The power of attorney granted to Dionigi by Elisabetta dates from 18th January 1546, but has been lost; ASM, Rubriche notarili 3532. 50 Annali, III, p.285, 13th August 1543. AVFDM, Ordinazioni Capitolari IX, fol.312v. 51 ASM, Notarile 8407, no.4710, 22nd January 1550. 52 Annali, IV, p.52, 14th June 1563. AVFDM, Ordinazioni Capitolari XII, fol.59v. 10 j anua ry 2 01 1 • cl ii I • t he bu rl ingt on maga zine 8. Detail of Fig.1 showing a dragon attacked by griffons. Annali, IV, p.164, 11th August 1578. AVFDM, Ordinazioni Capitolari XIV, fol.62v. The contract (ASM, Notarile 16473, 12th August 1578) stipulates that he should ‘fare uno Jesus di ramo conforme al desegno già fatto et visto, et consegnato ben fatto et netto, et bello, da metter al Santissimo Chiodo’. 54 The payment relative to this work on the bronze candlestick, equal to 4 scudi, is not a single entry but part of the payment made to Mascaroni ‘per resto de scudi vinti d’oro a luy promessi per la nettatura de la Maschara di mettallo et del Candellier di mettallo in Domo’ (AVFDM, Registri 751, fol.123r, 2nd April 1574). 55 Cinotti, op. cit. (note 2), p.260; and Zuffi, op. cit. (note 2), p.78. MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 11 THE TRIVULZIO CANDELABRUM 9. Detail of Fig.1 showing a female caryatid attacked by snakes. 11. Detail of Fig.1 showing the Sacrifice of Isaac with ornamented border. fourth piece, of the Temptation and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, unfortunately has not been tested). In his technical analysis, Sergio Angelucci decided that the alloy used for the candelabrum is substantially uniform: at most the discrepancies would suggest that the pieces were cast consecutively in the same foundry. If one consults Angelucci’s table of the metallic content of the various pieces, it is evident that the three parts of the base with a plain, undecorated border differ from every other section because of a much higher proportion of zinc, sometimes double, and a proportional lack of copper; and conversely these three parts are similar in composition to the smooth first knop of the stem where the percentage of zinc is even higher,57 a metal between bronze and brass in composition which would originally have appeared as a shining yellow-gold. The four parts of the base attributed here to Busca appeared to Cervini to be stylistically different from the other parts of the candelabrum.58 The stylistic and formal differences between the various pieces were apparent to him but the absence of any documentary evidence, which we now have, prevented him from stating openly what was visible to the eye, that some parts of the base were profoundly unlike the rest of the candelabrum. This is particularly true of the two sections with the Coronation of Esther (Fig.4) and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (Fig.7),59 that is, two of the parts that I would suggest were cast by Brusca in 1562. It is not easy to find parallels between Busca’s additions to the candelabrum and other cinquecento Milanese works of art. The principal figures in the lattice-work include echoes of Bambaia’s Lombard classicism, which is not surprising given that Busca was born at the start of the century and active in the Cathedral workshop when the great Lombard sculptor frequently worked there. It is more difficult to determine what works might have provided Busca with a model, apart from the medieval bronze itself that he was commissioned to repair. One has to take into account that no Milanese Renaissance bronzes are known to us, and that the age of the great sculptors, if one excludes the work of Leone Leoni, was still in the future: in 1562 Francesco Brambilla, Annibale Fontana, the other members of the Busca family, and Leoni’s collaborators for the Escorial bronzes were not yet on the scene, nor had work started on the bronze decoration for Milan Cathedral or for S. Maria presso S. Celso. Nor does stone sculpture help much because, with the death of Bambaia in 1548 and of Cristoforo Lombardo in 1555, the Milanese classical tradition came to a halt, and the work of the Sicilian Angelo Marini, already in Milan, offers no points of comparison. It may be more useful to focus attention on other arts that flourished in the city and on artists’ workshops noted for their production of luxury goods destined for the courts of Europe. I shall limit myself to one example that seems pertinent. The 56 57 10. Detail of Fig.1 showing a plain border. Sant’Ambrogio, op. cit. (note 5), p.121: ‘non è possibile disconoscere il carattere del Rinascimento che hanno molte delle figure che adornano il candelabro, e prime fra esse i Re Magi, le raffigurazioni d’Adamo ed Eva e in particolar modo l’incoronazione d’Ester per mano d’Assuero’; ‘se in taluni particolari, come per esempio nell’Arca di Noè, in cui il Patriarca e le bestie [. . .] sono di proporzioni esagerate [. . .] e così pure in certo carattere arcaico [. . .] del sacrificio d’Abramo e dell’episodio di Davide [. . .] puossi ravvisare alcun che dell’arte bambina del XIII secolo, tutti gli altri gruppi e in ispecial modo quello dell’incoronazione d’Assuero, si rivelano d’assai posteriori per la grazia e pel panneggiamento delle figure, e piuttosto del XVI secolo che non della seconda metà del XV ’. S. Angelucci: ‘Il candelabro Truvulzio: Analisi tecnica’, in Il candelabro, p.158, table no.2. Zinc comprises an average of 6% of the alloy of the three sections of the base and the smooth knop, against 3.5 of the rest of the candlestick. The high level of zinc present might suggest that some brass was added to the alloy, a practice normally used in the casting of guns to strengthen them, but perhaps used in the case of the candlestick to endow it with a more golden colouring. 58 Cervini, op. cit. (note 6), pp.45–46. 59 Ibid., pp.68–69. th e bur li ngto n mag azine • clii I • j anu ary 2 011 11 MA.JAN.Leydi.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 17/12/2010 11:05 Page 12 THE TRIVULZIO CANDELABRUM 13. Detail of Fig.1 showing a probable self-portrait of Giovan Antonio Busca. 12. Breastplate, attributed to Giovan Paolo Negroli. c.1540–45. Steel, brass, leather and textile, 3.05 kg. (Musée du Louvre, Paris). section with the story of Esther can be seen as an almost exact three-dimensional transposition, obviously with the addition of the biblical scenes and the signs of the zodiac, of a Milanese suit of armour attributed to Giovan Paolo Negroli (Fig.12), datable between 1540 and 1545, that is, made well before the candelabrum arrived in the city.60 The dragons whose tails are transformed into plants are identical, as is the overlapping of the figures, and even the horned mask in the centre of the breastplate which, in the candelabrum, sticks out three-dimensionally from the section’s lower border. Obviously Busca did not copy the armour, but rather took his cue from a well-established Milanese tradition which must have given rise to many other pieces of similar inspiration and execution. In addition the models offered by Giovan Paolo Negroli’s works were better adapted for the completion of a northern work in the right style, given that his armour was mostly destined for the French market, unlike that of his cousin Filippo Negroli, who provided for the Imperial court.61 The candelabrum holds one final surprise: the probable selfportrait of Giovan Antonio Busca (Fig.13). The bearded man who peers out at the bottom to the left of the scene with Esther is matched by a crucible in the opposite corner; neither portrait nor crucible have any biblical significance or connection with the surrounding lattice above. It is not difficult to imagine the old bronze-caster, close to death, proud of his craftsmanship, wishing to leave a record of himself in the piece that represented the summit of his art. What better than to hide his self-portrait among the ornament on the candelabrum’s base together with the chief attribute of his craft, a crucible? Appendix Accounts of the payments made for the restoration of the bronze candelabrum given to Milan Cathedral by Giovan Battista Trivulzio. (AVFDM, Registri 338A, fol.422sx, April to December 1562). Capitulum candelabri magni alias dono dati praedictae fabricae per Reverendum et magnificum Dominum Johannes Baptistam Triultium Archipresbiterum praedictae Maioris ecclesie, debe dare die 8 aprilis 1562 L. 15 ss. 3 d.– lapicidis n. 21 qui laboraverunt circa dictum candelabrum die dominico quintodecimo mensis martij proximo praeterito, ut pro scripto penes rationatorem thexaurerio in conto. Item, die suprascripto, L. 14, ss. 18, d. 6 lapicidis n. 20 qui laboraverunt circa dictum candelabrum die dominico 22 prefato mensis martij, ut pro scripto penes ut supra, texaurerio in conto. Item die suprascripto, L. 99, ss. 4, d. 3 magistro Alexandro Mascarono occaxione totidem per eum expenditorum in diversis rebus pro reaptando dictum candelabrum; et hoc a die 4 februarij usque ad diem 21 martij proximum praeteritum, ut pro lista et scripto penes ut supra, texaurerio in conto. Item, die 11 suprascripto, L. 2, ss. 10, d.– Baptiste de Manaris et Thimotheo de Serono pro sua honorantia finiendi tempore debito pedestallum ipsius candelabri, ut pro scripto penes ut supra, texaurerio in conto. Item die 17 suprascripto L. 379, ss. 2 pro domino Johanne Antonio Busche dicto 60 S. Pyhrr and J.-A. Godoy, eds.: exh. cat. Heroic Armor of the Renaissance. Filippo Negroli and his Contemporaries, New York (Metropolitan Museum) 1998–99, pp.233–35, no.45. 12 j anua ry 2 01 1 • cl ii I • t he bu rl ingt on maga zine Chiochino occaxione pretij petiorum quinque bronzij et duarum figurarum ac botonorum et foliaminum per eum factarum et gitatarum pro finimento dicti candelabri noviter positi in praedicta maiori ecclesia ante tabernaculum positum in praedicta ecclesia, que omnia, deductis libris 8 metalli eidem restituti, restant in summa libris 446 on.– metalli, ac computum ss. 17 d.– pro libra, computata gitatura ac metallo, ut pro scripto penes ut supra, texaurerio in conto. Item die suprascripto L. 266 ss.1 d. 1 pro magistro Baptiste Quatuordomum meniatori pro giemis n. 725 a ss. 6 d. 4 1/2 pro singula, et armis n[umero] sex meniatis, et aliis rebus adpretiatis L. 35 ss.– d.– positis in opera circa dictum candelabrum, ut pro scripto penes ut supra, texaurerio in conto. Item, die 18 suprascripto, L. 79, ss. 11, d.– expenditas diversi modi ad minutum circa dictum candelabrum a die 5 martij proximi praeteriti usque die 9 aprilis praesentis, ut pro lista penes ut supra, texaurerio in conto. Item, die 13 junij L. 110, ss–., d. –, magistro Alexandro Mascharono per modum provixionis pro operibus per eum factis in reaptando dictum candelabrum, ut pro scripto penes ut supra, texaurerio in conto. Item, die 30 decembris, L. 47, ss. 15, d. 6, occaxione pretij librarum 73 ½ cere nostrane date per dominus Christoforum de Vallotis in mensibus februarij et martij proximis praeterijs pro modellis gitandi certa capita suprascripti candelabri que deffitiebant, ad computum ss. 13, d.– pro libra, ut pro quinterneto penes ut supra, et in conto. 61 For the division of the European market between the two branches of the family, see S. Leydi: ‘A History of the Negroli Family’, in ibid., pp.37–60.