Marble from Candoglia

Milan at the end of the 14th century. The city states and, above all, the leading families in Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio had long since recognized this: Architecture, sculpture and painting are a tried and tested means of emphasizing their city’s image, their own wealth and power.

Milan is also rich. The city, situated on important traffic arteries, took on the leading role in the Lombard League of Cities as early as the twelfth century. In the middle of the 14th century, the rich “signori” of the metropolis wanted a new church. There was money and a bishop.

Marble is quarried underground in Candoglia on four different levels, at a depth of between 80 and 250 meters. (Photo: www.lerogge.it)

And so, at the end of the 14th century, a church was built in Milan in the Gothic style, even if the style was hardly “up to date” at the time. It’s all about the exterior. Bigger, higher, more beautiful are the central objectives. Propaganda for the faith and the builders.

On the site of the small Roman basilica of Santa Tecla and the Romanesque cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore, the third largest church in the world in terms of area was built: 157 meters long and 109 meters wide. This cathedral was to make Milan the political and religious center of power. The question of the right stone remains.

The blocks are sawn out of the wall using scraper saws. (Photo: www.lerogge.it)

There was plenty of stone in Italy back then too. However, the white marble from Carrara, the yellow travertine from Tivoli, the white and reddish limestone from the Veneto or the gray sandstone from Tuscany were out of the question in Milan. The others built with these stones: the popes in Rome, the doges in Venice, the Medici in Florence or Siena. The quarries were also far too far away for so many STEIN.

There were and still are stone deposits very close to Milan. And they had economic and logistical advantages then as they do today. Green serpentine in the Valle d’Aosta, gray gneiss in the Valle Ossola and reddish and white granite on Lake Maggiore were available. Too hard, too compact and too difficult to work, was the short answer of the French Baumeisters of the church. These stones were hardly suitable for the complicated and richly decorated forms of the late Gothic period. A church, a cathedral even, had to be made of marble. After all, so were the churches in the south.

While still in the quarry, the blocks are cut to a standard grid size. (Photo: www.lerogge.it)

An exclusive stone with its own character was needed. A stone that, like the church itself, has a message. This stone was found very close by, in Candoglia. In 1392, the builders of the new church concluded a contract with the “Teutonicis de Ornavaxio”, the “Teutons from Ornavaxio”. Settlers of German origin who had immigrated to two small villages nearby. The contract entitled them to exploit a pink rock interspersed with iron oxides on the slopes of the Ornavasso and Candoglia mountains for an indefinite period.

400,000 cubic meters of marble from Candoglia were supplied for wall cladding, tracery, struts and other components as well as for around 4,000 statues by the time of the inauguration in 1572. For cost reasons, however, the marble was mostly only used as exposed stone. The interior of the pillars was made of bricks, irregularly broken masonry and mortar.

Read more about the marble from Candoglia in STEIN in May 2014.