ThePortinari Chapel (Italian:Cappella Portinari) is aRenaissance chapel at theBasilica of Sant'Eustorgio,Milan, northernItaly. Commenced in 1460 and completed in 1468, it was commissioned by Pigello Portinari as a private sepulchre and to house a silver shrine given by ArchbishopGiovanni Visconti in 1340 containing therelic head ofSt. Peter of Verona, to whom the chapel is consecrated.[1][2] The architect is unknown, the traditional attribution toMichelozzo having been succeeded with equal uncertainty by attributions to eitherFilarete orGuiniforte Solari, architect of the apses of theCertosa di Pavia and the church ofSan Pietro in Gessate in Milan.
The Portinari Chapel, which has been described as a work of Tuscan architecture in Lombardy,[3] was commissioned by theFlorentine nobleman Pigello Portinari (1421–1468), who became the representative in Milan of theMedici bank in 1452.[1][4] (His younger brotherTommaso, also a Medici banker andpatron, would commission thePortinari Altarpiece fromHugo van der Goes in 1475.) The building was intended to function both as a family chapel and mortuary and to house the relics of Saint Peter of Verona who, as patron saint of inquisitors,[5] was of particular importance to theDominicans of Sant’Eustorgio: their convent had housed the Milan inquisition since the 1230s.[4][6]
Above the chapel’s altar adonor portrait from 1462, sometimes attributed toGiovanni da Vaprio, depicts Pigello Portinari kneeling in prayer before Peter of Verona. This image may be the origin of the legend that Peter appeared in a vision to Pigello, commanding him to build a chapel in which his remains might be honourably preserved.[1][4][7] Pigello Portinari was interred here in 1468, but the saint’s head remained in the sacristy[8] and his tomb was not moved into the chapel until 1737.[4]
The chapel is located at the eastern end of the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio. From the exterior it is a compact cubic brick building with a lower-roofed, projecting square apse. The main body of the chapel is surmounted by a dome with sloping tiled roof supporting a high lantern, framed by four turrets. The dome of the apse is protected by an octagonal structure, again capped with a tiled roof.
Internally the chapel has architectural features that bear similarity to theSagrestia Vecchia byFilippo Brunelleschi. The interior spaces are defined by architectural orders, pilasters, architraves, mouldings, pendentives and a ribbed dome with all the details picked out in grey stone that contrasts with the flat plaster surfaces. These architectonic features are in places richly ornamented with formal motifs in relief.
A number of the surfaces have been painted infresco in the Lombardy manner byVincenzo Foppa. In thependentives supporting the dome aretondi with theDoctors of the Church while on the side walls are fourScenes from the life of St. Peter of Verona. Above the arch which marks the entrance to the apse is anAnnunciation and, facing it above the arch which forms the entrance to the chapel, anAssumption of the Virgin. The frescos were rediscovered in 1878 and restored at the beginning of the twentieth century.[9]
In 1736 the elaborate marble sepulchre of Peter of Verona, commissioned in 1336 fromGiovanni di Balduccio (a pupil ofGiovanni Pisano), was moved from the basilica into the Portinari Chapel and placed at the back of the apse; the following year a marble altar was erected in front of it, on which was placed the silver shrine containing the saint’s head. In the 1880s the sepulchre, which had been hidden away awkwardly behind the altar, was moved into the main body of the chapel and placed somewhat off-centre, where it would be well lit by the lateral windows, and where it still stands. The head, however, is today conserved in a small adjacent chapel.[1][9][10][11]
The Chapel also includes a number of paintings by anonymous Lombard artists, including frescoes such as theMiracolo della nuvola e Miracolo della falsa Madonna, and a depiction of the martyrdom ofSt Peter Martyr.
The "Miracle of the Host and the False Madonna" painting was the basis of the plot of the 2021 horror film,The Unholy.
45°27′15″N9°10′56″E / 45.4541°N 9.18216°E /45.4541; 9.18216
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
