The Cathedral Builders: The Story of a Great Masonic GuildScott, Leader
History
The Cathedral Builders: The Story of a Great Masonic Guild
Scott, Leader
Cathedrals; Church architecture; Guilds
This work finished, Magister Giovanni went to Bellano on the east bank
of Lake Como, together with two of his brotherhood, the Magister
Antonio, son of the late Jacopo of Castellazzo da Peglio in the valley
of Intelvi, and Magister Comolo, son of the late Magister
Gufredo--probably a descendant of the Magister Fredus mentioned
above--of Asteno, near Porlezza, to rebuild the church there, which
had been ruined by age and repeated floods.[136] This church is in
pure Lombard style, and has a façade in black and white marble, with a
fine rose window, encircled with terra-cotta foliaged decorations.
After this Magister Giovanni of Campione was recalled to Bergamo to
adorn the façades of the church which Fredus had left in a rough state
200 years before. These two façades faced north and south. Strange to
say, the part opposite the altar has no door. In this new emprise
Giovanni brought as his assistants his son Nicolino, a relative named
Antonio (probably the one who had worked with him at Bellano), and a
certain Giovanni Cattaneo, also from Campione. Giovanni, who was head
architect, decided not to renovate the whole south façade facing the
Piazza on which he began first, but to concentrate his ornamentation
on a fine vestibule and doorway, to form a species of frontal. The
vestibule was finished in 1351, having taken only two years. On the
architrave he has himself chronicled it--"1351, m. Johannes de
Campillione C. B. (civis Bergomensis) fecit hoc opus." The whole front
seems to have taken three years more, as on the base of the horse on
which St. Alexander, patron saint of Bergamo, sits, may be
read--"Filius Ughi de Campillione fecit hoc opus 1355."
Good Master John of Campione did not long survive the execution of
this masterpiece, for on the north porch is inscribed--"1360. Magister
Johannes f. q. (filius quondam) Dom. Johannes de Campilio ...
(abrasion) fecit hoc opus in Christi nomine. Amen."
This north porch, though so nearly coeval, shows a much greater
advance in style. It is an eloquent proof of how architecture was
progressing at this time by the grafting on of different influences.
John the father, being older, kept more closely to his Lombard
traditions. John the son, being youthful and more open to conviction,
took up new ideas. He has kept the Lombard arch in his porch, the
moulding of which is extremely rich, and the lions of Judah duly
support his pillars, but he has filled in his arch with very Gothic
tracery, in trefoil arches, and over the Lombard columns of the upper
storey of the porch are arches and decorations decidedly Oriental in
appearance. It is about as good a specimen of the rich chaos of ideas
that marks a transition stage as one can get, and shows that John the
younger had been influenced by the Saracen-Norman influence in Sicily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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