The
Cappella Colleoni (Colleoni Chapel) is a church/mausoleum in
BergamoBergamo is a town in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to approximately 117,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
, northern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
.
Dedicated to the saints Bartholomew, Mark and
John the BaptistJohn the Baptist was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of Baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel...
, it was built in 1472-1476 as the personal shrine for the famous condottiere
Bartolomeo ColleoniBartolomeo Colleoni was an Italian condottiero.Colleoni was born at Solza, in the countryside of Bergamo , where he prepared his magnificent mortuary chapel, the Cappella Colleoni, in a shrine that he seized when it was refused him by the local confraternity, the Consiglio della Misericordia...
, a member of one of the most outstanding families of the city, and his beloved daughter Medea. The site chosen was that of the sacristy of the nearby church of
Santa Maria MaggioreThe Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is a church in Bergamo, Northern Italy.-History:The church was founded in 1137 on the site of another church from the 8th century dedicated to St Mary, which had been in turn erected over a Roman temple of the Clemence. The high altar was consecrated in 1185 and...
, which was demolished by Colleoni's soldiers.
The design was entrusted to
Giovanni Antonio Amadeothumb|260px|The Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo.Giovanni Antonio Amadeo was an Italian early Renaissance sculptor, architect and engineer....
, whose plan respected the style of the church, as can been seen from the octagonal
tambourIn classical architecture, a tambour is the inverted bell of the Corinthian capital around which are carved acanthus leaves for decoration....
of the dome and in the lantern cusp, as well as in the use of polychrome marbles.
The façade is characterized by the use of
tarsiaTarsia is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. The ancient town of Caprasia is thought to be the modern Tarsia....
and polychrome marble decorations in white, red and black
lozengeA lozenge , often referred to as a diamond, is a form of rhombus. The definition of lozenge is not strictly fixed, and it is sometimes used simply as a synonym for rhombus. Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus—a rhombus with acute angles of 45°...
s.
The
Cappella Colleoni (Colleoni Chapel) is a church/mausoleum in
BergamoBergamo is a town in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to approximately 117,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
, northern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
.
Dedicated to the saints Bartholomew, Mark and
John the BaptistJohn the Baptist was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of Baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel...
, it was built in 1472-1476 as the personal shrine for the famous condottiere
Bartolomeo ColleoniBartolomeo Colleoni was an Italian condottiero.Colleoni was born at Solza, in the countryside of Bergamo , where he prepared his magnificent mortuary chapel, the Cappella Colleoni, in a shrine that he seized when it was refused him by the local confraternity, the Consiglio della Misericordia...
, a member of one of the most outstanding families of the city, and his beloved daughter Medea. The site chosen was that of the sacristy of the nearby church of
Santa Maria MaggioreThe Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is a church in Bergamo, Northern Italy.-History:The church was founded in 1137 on the site of another church from the 8th century dedicated to St Mary, which had been in turn erected over a Roman temple of the Clemence. The high altar was consecrated in 1185 and...
, which was demolished by Colleoni's soldiers.
The design was entrusted to
Giovanni Antonio Amadeothumb|260px|The Colleoni Chapel in Bergamo.Giovanni Antonio Amadeo was an Italian early Renaissance sculptor, architect and engineer....
, whose plan respected the style of the church, as can been seen from the octagonal
tambourIn classical architecture, a tambour is the inverted bell of the Corinthian capital around which are carved acanthus leaves for decoration....
of the dome and in the lantern cusp, as well as in the use of polychrome marbles.
Overview
The façade is characterized by the use of
tarsiaTarsia is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. The ancient town of Caprasia is thought to be the modern Tarsia....
and polychrome marble decorations in white, red and black
lozengeA lozenge , often referred to as a diamond, is a form of rhombus. The definition of lozenge is not strictly fixed, and it is sometimes used simply as a synonym for rhombus. Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus—a rhombus with acute angles of 45°...
s. Over the main portal is a
rose windowA Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in churches of the Gothic architectural style and being divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery...
, flanked by two medallions portraying
Julius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar , , was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
and
TrajanMarcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus, commonly known as Trajan , was a Roman Emperor who reigned from A. D. 98 until his death in A. D. 117...
.
The upper part of the basement has nine plaques with reliefs of Biblical stories, and four bas-reliefs with
HerculesHercules is the Roman name for the mythical Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena. Early Roman sources suggest that the imported Greek hero supplanted a mythic Italic shepherd called "Recaranus" or "Garanus", famous for his strength, who dedicated the Ara Maxima that became...
's deeds. The four pilasters of the windows flanking the portal are surmounted by statues of the Virtues. The upper part of the façade has a
loggiaLoggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Italian design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
in Romanesque style.
The interior includes a square hall and a smaller room housing the high altar. The tomb of Bartolomeo Colleoni (who died on November 2 1475) is on the wall facing the entrance. It is decorated with reliefs of
Episodes from the Life of Christ, statues, heads of lions and an equestrian statue of the condottiere in gilded wood, finished by German masters from
NurembergNuremberg is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city. It is located about 170 kilometres north of Munich, at 49.27° N 11.5° E. The population is...
in 1501. The whole complex is surrounded by a triumphal arch.
Amadeo himself executed the funerary monument of Medea Colleoni (died March 6 1470). Located on the left wall, it has a statue of the
Deposition from the Cross in high relief. The tomb was transferred here in 1892 from
UrgnanoUrgnano is a comune in the Province of Bergamo in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about 45 km northeast of Milan and about 11 km south of Bergamo...
.
The presbytery has a high altar sculpted by Bartolomeo Manni in 1676, housing statues of the three saints to whom the chapel is dedicated, John, Mark and Bartholomew, by
Pietro LombardoPietro Lombardo was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect; born in Carona , he was the father of Tullio Lombardo and Antonio Lombardo....
. The upswept cornice is supported by
Solomonic columnThe Solomonic column, also called Barley-sugar column, is a helical column, characterized by a spiraling twisting shaft like a corkscrew...
s. The altar table, to a design by Leopoldo Pollack, is supported by angels carved by Grazioso Rusca.
Notable are the frescoes of the dome, depicting
Episodes of the Lives of St. Mark, John the Baptist and Bartholomew, executed by Giambattista Tiepolo in 1732-1733.
Bartolomeo Colleoni's remains
For centuries it was believed that the condottiere's remains had been buried elsewhere, as the sarcophagus appeared empty. On November 21 1969, however, they were discovered in Colleoni's tomb in a wooden coffin, hidden under a plaster cover.
External links