Milan, Archdiocese of

MILAN, Archdiocese of. - It now comprises a territory of 4,850 sq km and extends not only over the present province of M. but also over part of those of Como, Bergamo and Pavia.

The boundaries of the diocese varied at different times, nor is it always possible to fix them with exactness; more important and better known is the extent of the metropolitan circumscription of M., of which mention is already made at the time of the Council of Sardica (343-44); and until the 5th century in northern Italy only the bishop of M. appears as metropolitan, and a little later also that of Aquileia. In its greatest extent the Milanese metropolitan province would have embraced the vicariate of Italy, that is Liguria (now Liguria, Piedmont and Lombardy), Emilia, Venetia and Istria, the Cottian Alps and also Raetia I, with its capital Chur; very soon, however, Aquileia and then Ravenna withdrew from Milanese jurisdiction the eastern part of the territory, and in the 9th century under Angilbert II Chur was subjected to the archbishop of Mainz. In the Beroldus (Ecclesiae Ambrosianae Mediolanensis kalendarium, ed. M. Magistretti, Milan 1894) of the 12th century, 18 episcopal sees of the province of M. are indicated; at the end of the 12th century only 15 are indicated; between the 15th and 16th centuries M. lost the dioceses of Vercelli and Turin; now the dioceses of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Lodi, Crema, Como, Pavia and Mantua form part of the Milanese province; nevertheless 54 parishes in Switzerland, in the pievi of the Three Valleys, of Valle Capriasca and of Brissago, still follow the Ambrosian rite (v. AMBROSIANA LITURGIA) even today; 29 parishes of the diocese of Bergamo (vicariate of Calolzio, of Caprino, of S. Brigida and of Sottochiesa), and 7 parishes of the diocese of Novara (pieve of Cannobbio); while 30 parishes of the diocese of M. (Monza, Treviglio, Trezzo d'Adda, Varenna and Civate) practice the Roman rite.

The present inhabitants dependent on the diocese of M. number about 3,500,000; the parishes 879, the churches 2,003, the diocesan priests 2,100, the male religious orders and congregations 31, the female 119.

The diocese has a theological seminary at Venegono Inferiore with a lyceal seminary; gymnasial seminaries are at S. Pietro Martire (Seveso) and at Masnago (Varese); a seminary of the Duomo with an attached school of S. Arialdo and the Pont. Ambrosian Inst. of Sacred Music (for the Beato Angelico school and the University of the Sacred Heart: v. SCUOLA SUP. D'ARTE CRIST. B. A. and S. CUORE, UNIV. del). In the diocese there are also numerous archiepiscopal colleges: in M. the S. Carlo, others at Gorla minore, at Arona, at Porlezza, at Saronno, at Desio, at Tradate, at Seregno, at Monza, at Lecco, at Cantù and at Vimercate. Colleges and institutes run by religious are in M. the Gonzaga, the Zaccaria, the Leo XIII, the Salesian college, besides numerous female ones run by Sisters.

I. ORIGINS AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE CITY

Perhaps preceded in its center and in some peripheral sites by Neolithic settlements (Cascina Ranza, Cattabrega di Crescenzago) and by Celtic villages (at S. Antonino and at S. Protaso), Mediolanum owed its origin and its fortune to its position (as its Celtic name probably also indicates) at the center of the Lombard plain and at the crossroads of roads for the gathering of merchants and soldiers. The Romans occupied it after 222 B.C. and retook it after the Second Punic War around 191; in 49 it was recognized as a Roman municipium, in 42 it was incorporated into Roman Italy; it was a Roman center against the Alpine peoples from Augustus onward and a temporary seat, and then, from the end of the 3rd century A.D., a permanent seat of emperors.

II. ORIGINS OF MILANESE CHRISTIANITY AND OF THE MILANESE CHURCH

A legendary tradition, which does not go back beyond the 11th century, attributes the origin of the Milanese Church to the preaching of St. Barnabas, and relates that the Saint stopped in the suburb so as not to pay homage, in passing through the gates of the city, to the pagan gods with which every gate was adorned; he would therefore have begun his apostolate in the suburb, and they even dare to specify the place, a few steps from the present basilica of St. Eustorgius, where the little church of St. Barnabas at the font had arisen, destroyed in the 17th century; except that one day, having seized the Cross and caused the pagan idols to fall, from the Porta Orientale, now Porta Venezia, the Saint would have entered the city and taken possession of it, giving the first apostolic organization to the Milanese Church and the first bishop, St. Anatalone.

Another legend, or at least a tale amply colored with legendary details, speaks of a certain Philip "a name most illustrious both before the world and before God" (Datiana historia, 5, p. 20, ed. Biraghi, Milan 1848), who would have made a gift of a garden to St. Caius, who in turn would have transformed it into a Christian cemetery; and it also speaks of the domus of Philip, the first seat of worship in the city or in the suburb, and of Porzio and Fausta, children of Philip, who in turn would have donated two basilicas to the Milanese, called by their name.

In reality, concerning the time and manner of the introduction of Christianity to M. one can only conjecture that in a place like M., which had become more important from year to year, from the 1st century A.D. onward the new faith, especially in the silence of the humble, must have spread quickly, through the work of unknown missionaries, and the episcopal see been established.

The Milanese martyrology, which can be recognized as authentic, is represented by Sts. Victor, Nabor and Felix, Gervasius and Protasius (v.), Nazarius and Celsus; on whom legend ran riot.

Of St. Calimerus the bishop various legends speak, calling him of Greek or Roman origin and having him die a martyr in the place where his basilica arose, drowned in a well. Moreover other Passiones link to M. saints who were not Milanese, e.g., St. Alexander, St. Fidelis, St. Carpophorus, St. Exantus, Sts. Firmus and Rusticus. The first bishops St. Anatalone or Anatolius, St. Caius, St. Castriziano are presented as confessors of the faith, and then, besides St. Calimerus, St. Mona up to St. Mirocles, who succeeded one another until the time of Constantine, alongside an Aurelius Diogenes and a Valeria Felicissima whose funeral slab, discovered in 1786 and then lost (CIL, V, 6186) near the cemetery ad martyres, states that they were a Domino coronati e beati confessores, comites martyrorum.

In 313, the emperors Constantine and Licinius having met at M. to fix the guidelines of their policy, they confirm there the eastern edict of Galerius of 311, favorable to the recognition of Christianity; the new recognition, however, not proclaimed in a particular document, takes its name from a supposed edict of M. From then on, during the 4th century, M. becomes an important center of development of Western Christianity, not without conflicts, both with paganism and with heresies, and especially with the Arian heresy; this, toward the middle of the century, has the protection of Constantius II and of Justina, who make themselves guardians of Arian bishops, until Aurelius Ambrose, having become bishop in 373, through a series of providential circumstances, fought the heresy effectively and, setting himself up as a valid supporter of the Roman Church, succeeded in dominating imperial policy itself in the West, maintaining very close relations with Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius and influencing notably and often their decisions, not only religious but also political.

After the deaths of Theodosius (395) and St. Ambrose (397), M. still had in the age of Honorius and Stilicho some moment of splendor, until in 402, following the threats of Alaric's Goths, the court was transferred to Ravenna; then in the middle of the 5th century Attila arrived with the Huns, and then the city found its most valid defenders in its bishops, from Eusebius to Lorenzo I. The dominion of Theodoric and the Goths and the destruction of the city in 539 at the hands of the Goth Ursia, and then the arrival of the Lombards in 579 change the fate of M. and open for it another historical era.

III. MILAN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

At the arrival of the pagan and Arian Lombards, Bishop St. Honoratus and part of the population fled to Genoa, where the Milanese episcopate remained in exile until the 7th century. Meanwhile in the city, chiefly through the merit of Queen Theodelinda (died 628) and of Pope Gregory the Great, a fusion between Romans and Lombards began to take effect, and M. became the seat of a duke, who had his court where today is the Cordusio (curia or curtis ducis). In 605 the Lombard king Adaloald was crowned in the circus of M., and at the beginning of the 8th century the Lombard Theodore, brother of King Liutprand, became bishop of M., while his sister Aurona founded, in what is now Via Monte di Pietà, the monastery that took its name from her. The duke was replaced by a count at the arrival of the Franks in 774, and little by little in the new feudal order his political power came to be merged with the religious power in the person of the bishop, who was created missus dominicus by Charlemagne and admitted to the national assemblies with high authority; among other things, the bishop was to provide for the city's fortifications, so that one of the city's walls took its name from Anspert of Biassono (868-81).

At the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire, in 887, only the archbishop of M., as bishop-count, represented the Italian tradition, which would be confirmed by Conrad II the Salic in 1026, when, on receiving the crown of Italy in the basilica of St. Ambrose, he granted the bishop

Aribert of Intimiano (v.; 1018-45) the title of imperial vicar. City life then developed around the bishop in the persons of the captains and greater feudatories and of the merchants, who carried on their trade through the Ticino valleys, the temporal domain of the bishops themselves. Once again M. was at the center of Lombard life, but the temporal authority of the bishops in the feudal order unleashed against Aribert the rebellion of the lesser vassals, whose fiefs were not hereditary; having defeated the greater feudatories and the bishop-count at Campomalo, Conrad II the Salic intervened to grant, with the constitutio de feudis of 1037, the right of inheritance also to the lesser feudatories, had Aribert arrested and besieged M. But the people rebelled, making common cause with Aribert, who had fled from Piacenza to M., and it seems that Aribert himself then devised the Carroccio, drawn by oxen and bearing the Cross with the image of the Redeemer, in order to gather around himself, at the sound of the martinella, the Milanese people in defense of their liberty. The Emperor withdrew, but not long after, in 1042, the rich merchants, under the leadership of the judge Lanzone, drove out the nobles and laid the first foundations of the Commune of M., which came into being at the end of the 11th century with the agreement between nobility and bourgeoisie, which allied itself, in order to fight with the so-called pataria, against the immoral and simoniacal clergy; among the most listened-to preachers was Bl. Arialdo (v.), and with him stood Anselm of Baggio and Landulf Cotta, canons of the Cathedral, while Bishop Guido was in opposition. Meanwhile the civil struggle over the conduct of the clergy grew ever sharper; St. Peter Damian intervened to make peace, and Anselm of Baggio, having become pope in 1061 under the name Alexander II, strengthened with his new authority the party of the Patarines; there followed the excommunication against Guido, the intervention of the knight Erlembald, brother of Landulf Cotta, then the arrest and killing of St. Arialdo, and finally, after other events in which the Milanese episcopate was gravely implicated and the clarifying and pacifying authority of the Pope intervened several times, Erlembald (1075) was killed; then little by little tranquility returned among the parties in M.

The Commune then developed under the shelter of the archbishop's power and was guided by the consuls, and then, for reasons of protecting its interests, began the struggle against other Communes, Lodi, Como, Cremona, Pavia, despite the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux and of the monks of the Abbey of Clairvaux and of Morimondo, founded by him during his long stay in Milan.

In 1158 M. suffered its first clash with Barbarossa, and in 1162 the city fell after a strenuous defense and was largely destroyed by the Emperor's German militias and by the citizens of the hostile Lombard Communes; with the oath of Pontida (1167), which created the anti-imperial Lombard League, the Milanese, by then reconciled with the hostile Communes, re-entered the city, rebuilt it, and in the battle of Legnano (1176) contributed to the Lombard recovery against Barbarossa, who recognized the autonomy of the Communes with the peace of Constance (1183).

M. meanwhile swarmed with Cathar and Waldensian heretics, against whom the Dominicans, established in the convent of St. Eustorgius, now fought, while the Order of the Humiliati was created, attending to the wool trade as well as to religious occupations, and now the Cistercians, who also occupied themselves with the reclamation of the countryside around the city. Frederick II defeated M. and the Communes at Cortenova, but was then defeated by the second Lombard League; then the struggles between Ghibellines and Guelphs also agitated M., the nobles being on the side of the former, as protégés of Archbishop Leone da Perago, a great persecutor of heretics as well, and the people on the side of the Guelphs, who in 1240 chose Pagano Della Torre as their leader. Finally, with the city's internal struggles rekindled, complicated by external struggles with the parties of the neighboring cities,

Pope Urban IV appointed Ottone Visconti archbishop of M. (1262), and there began that rivalry between the Torriani and the Visconti which in 1310, on the entry into the city of Matteo Visconti as imperial vicar in the retinue of Henry VII, was resolved in favor of the Visconti. They, as Ghibellines, incurred in 1321 the excommunication of John XXII, while the interdict was proclaimed against M., and at Vaprio in 1322 they defeated the Guelphs allied against the city. In M. there accordingly followed one another the lords of the house of Visconti until

1447, and during their lordship the Visconti state expanded its territory and its trade, nor did the Milanese episcopate oppose them any longer, counting among its bishops also Giovanni Visconti (1342). In 1395 the emperor Wenceslaus gave the title of duke to Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and finally in 1450, after the brief interlude of the Ambrosian Republic (1447-50), Francesco Sforza took the lordship, a skilled politician and at the same time a patron of the arts and letters, who transmitted it to his successors, of whom Ludovico il Moro (1499-1508) brought Leonardo da Vinci and Donato Bramante to M.

IV. FOREIGN DOMINATION AND REVIVAL

In 1490, following the struggle against the Sforza by King Louis XII of France, the French entered M.; after a brief interlude and following the victory of Marignano (1515) they established themselves there until 1521, when Charles V proclaimed the last of the Sforza, Francis II, Duke of M., and on his death annexed the Duchy to the Empire. Then Spanish rule was established in M., represented by a governor with almost absolute authority over nobles, clergy and people in an environment such as that described in the Promessi Sposi: an environment of despotism and at the same time of disregard for the interests of the citizens, in which there shine forth instead the figures of the two archbishop cardinals Borromeo: St. Charles (v.), concerned to apply the reforms of the Council of Trent, sought in the diocese to preserve independence from any lay interference in episcopal jurisdiction, reformed discipline, reactivated churches and convents and built new ones, provided for the restoration of the Ambrosian rite and for the dignity and decorum of worship. Federico, besides exerting himself during the terrible plague of 1630, showed singular love for culture by founding among other things the Ambrosian Library (1609) and the Picture Gallery (1621).

With the Treaty of Rastatt (1714) Lombardy and M. passed to the Austrian Crown, which in 1736 occupied M., carrying out under Maria Theresa and Joseph II characteristic economic and juridical reforms; this is the time when, with the Jesuits removed from the city, the Patriotic Society arose at Brera (1778) for the advancement of culture, and under Joseph II an invasion began in the religious sphere, which led among other things to the suppression of numerous churches and convents and to the secularization of the school: this is the time when the abbot Giuseppe Parini lashed the world of privileges and corruption of the noble and rich Milanese (Il giorno, 1763).

On 15 May 1796 the French entered M. with Napoleon, unleashing revolutionary frenzy in the city, while the French soldiers plundered churches, museums and public coffers; M. became first the capital of the Cisalpine Republic, then of the Kingdom of Italy, and witnessed the coronation of Napoleon as king in the Cathedral (1805), while persecution against the religious Orders intensified. After a brief period of renewed prosperity, the discontent of the people grew, culminating in 1814 with the killing of the minister Prina by a furious mob; shortly afterwards M. passed into the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia within the Austrian Empire, from which it suffered abuses, oppression and a worsening of economic conditions, while the patriotic program for revolution was being carried out, which marks the names of Giovanni Berchet, Silvio Pellico, Carlo Cattaneo, Cesare Correnti, Federico Confalonieri; it is the time of Tommaso Grossi, of Alessandro Manzoni, of Massimo d'Azeglio and of Antonio Rosmini and finally of Giuseppe Verdi. Consequence: the Five Days (18-22 March 1848) and a decade later the entry into M. (8 June 1859) of Victor Emmanuel II and of Napoleon III.

From that time on M. was in the forefront in the work of the political risorgimento and of the economic consolidation of the country, albeit through alternating vicissitudes of fortune and misfortune.

V. ART

M., built in ever wider rings of walls and buildings around the center of Piazza S. Sepolcro and the nearby Piazza Mercanti and Piazza del Duomo, is rich in memories and monuments of every age and above all in those later than the destruction by Barbarossa in 1762.

For the Roman age there are traces of the theater, the circus, the arena, the walls and some other building; the columns of S. Lorenzo, perhaps taken from a pagan temple, and part of the towers of the Monastero Maggiore, are for now the only elements, visible on the exterior, of such constructions.

For the early Christian age the most notable monuments and the best preserved in their successive reconstructions and adaptations are the basilica of S. Lorenzo, perhaps of the 4th century, with important mosaics, the basilica of the Apostles, now S. Nazaro, the basilica Ambrosiana, where St. Ambrose is buried, the basilica of S. Simpliciano, conceived and in part built by St. Ambrose; one should also note in the present basilica of S. Ambrogio the ancient chapel of S. Vittore in ciel d'oro and in that of S. Simpliciano the exterior masonry, still preserved, of the end of the 4th century.

Of the communal M. there survives the Piazza dei Mercanti, which had at its center the Broletto Nuovo or Palazzo della Ragione, built in the 13th century, the church of S. Vincenzo in prato and the basilica of S. Eustorgio, now with the appearance it assumed in the 8th-9th centuries with important additions (Portinari chapel) of the 15th century, the churches of S. Eufemia, of S. Celso and of S. Calimero, the basilica of S. Satiro and that of S. Babila. The abbey of Chiaravalle, on the southern borders of the present city, is a foundation of St. Bernard and his monks in the 12th century, and the church of S. Maria la Rossa of the 10th century is in the suburb in the direction of Pavia.

In the Visconti-Sforza M. there developed the work of Giovanni Averulino, called il Filarete, and of Guiniforte Solari, the former a representative of the Tuscan art of the early Renaissance, the latter of the manner of the so-called Lombard Gothic. Leonardo da Vinci and Bramante worked at M. under the Sforza. In the Visconti-Sforza city there were not only the new walls of Azzone Visconti (of which the pusterla of S. Ambrogio and the Porta Nuova remain), but also the Navigli, begun in the 13th century and completed in the 15th (Naviglio grande, of Pavia, of the Martesana and internal). Much battered by war is the Ospedale Maggiore «la Cà Granda», founded by Francesco Sforza; important are the church of S. Gottardo al Palazzo, the house of the Borromeo, now almost entirely destroyed by bombardments; the Monastero Maggiore, of which the church of S. Maurizio survives with notable paintings by Bernardino Luini, the cloisters of S. Ambrogio (now the Università Cattolica), the church of the Grazie, a work of Bramante, beside the famous Last Supper of Leonardo; the Castello, erected in 1568; and other buildings of the suburb, such as the Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, the Villa Mirabello and S. Cristoforo sul Naviglio.

The most notable and characteristic monument of M., whose beginning is fixed in 1386, under Gian Galeazzo Visconti and through the impulse of Archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo, is the Duomo, dedicated to Maria Nascente, the vastest and most complex organism of Gothic architecture in Italy, built laboriously through centuries of work and finished only in the time of Napoleon with the facade not entirely harmonious, while only in our own days are the bronze doors being provided. The work is entirely in marble of Candoglia (Lake Maggiore) and is decorated with 3150 statues, most of them on the exterior; the main spire is 108.50 m. high, with the famous «Madonnina»; the interior is rich in works of art, with great storied windows and has an important and rich treasury; beneath the high altar is the «scurolo», where St. Charles is buried.

During the Spanish domination, as regards monuments, there were active at M. Gaetano Alessi, Vincenzo Seregni, Pellegrino Tibaldi, called il Pellegrino, the Mangone, the Richini; the Procaccini, the Cerano, the Morazzone, the Crespi and others gave the city notable paintings; a new and wider ring of walls is due to Ferrante Gonzaga, governor between 1549 and 1561, the one still called that of the bastions; to this age belong the lazzaretto, the Palazzo del Senato, now the State Archive, the present Palazzo arcivescovile, the churches of S. Maria della Passione, of S. Stefano, of S. Antonio abate, of S. Paolo and Barnaba, of S. Maria presso S. Celso, of S. Alessandro, of S. Sebastiano, the present one of S. Vittore al corpo, of S. Raffaele, of S. Marco and then the Rotonda of the Hospital, the Belgioioso, Marino, di Brera palaces, that of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana and, outside the city, the Simonetta and the charterhouse of Caregnano.

During the Austrian domination there arose characteristic noble palaces, such as the Palazzo Reale, the Palazzi Trivulzio, Serbelloni, Sormani-Andreani, Cusani, Dugnani, Clerici, Crivelli, Arese-Litta, the Villa Reale and above all the Teatro della Scala, a work of Piermarini (1779) on the area of the ancient church of S. Maria della Scala.

Of Napoleonic M. are the Arena and the Arco della Pace and of the age of the Risorgimento, besides some houses, such as that of Manzoni, the Palazzo Melzi, that of the Borromeo d'Adda, the Palazzo Saporiti, the votive temple to St. Charles; the modest monument to Leonardo and the public Gardens. More recently the Piazza del Duomo was rearranged with the construction of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and the palaces of the northern and southern porticoes and the equestrian monument to Vittorio Emanuele II and that of the Cinque giornate; then the quarter of Via Dante was built with the Foro Bonaparte and the Castello was rearranged and then the Parco; the quarter of Piazza degli Affari was also founded, the Piazza Diaz and the Missori quarter, the Corso del Littorio, now Matteotti, the via dei Giardini, the quarter of Piazza Fiume, now Piazza della Repubblica; in Piazza S. Ambrogio arose the monument to the Fallen; three other buildings stood out for their grandeur, if not always for their art: the central station, the Palazzo di Giustizia and the new Ospedale del Perdono at Niguarda; a myriad of new constructions, after the destruction of the war, have intervened to alter and not always to embellish the city: thus the face of the old M. has in many parts been irreparably lost.

The city then preserves notable relics of art of every century in the great Pinacoteca di Brera, in the Ambrosiana, in the Museo del Castello, in the Poldi Pezzoli and in other lesser collections; the new Museo archeologico in the cloister of the Monastero maggiore and the Museo della Tecnica, which will find a place in the cloister of S. Vittore al corpo, are under construction and preparation. - See plates LXIII-LXV.

Aristide Calderini