In the north transept stands the _Albero_, a colossal seven-branched candlestick of bronze, in the form of a tree. An inscription on the base records that it was presented to the Cathedral by one of the Trivulzio family in 1562, but it is usually described as thirteenth century work. The style, however, proclaims it not earlier than the late fifteenth, and it might well be later. The seven branches spring from a bossy stem supported on winged dragons; the interstices are filled up with a web of vine tendrils in which figures of delicate workmanship are wrought—sacred and symbolic characters, and biblical scenes; the story of Adam and Eve, Noah and the Dove, the Sacrifice of Isaac, David with the head of Goliath, etc. The Procession and Adoration of the Magi are cunningly arranged round the stem. Up the sides of the chapel of the Madonna dell’ Albero there are some bas-reliefs representing the Life of the Virgin, by Cristoforo Solari, il Bambaia and others of the early Cinquecentists; these were originally round the door in this transept which Cardinal Borromeo abolished. The stained glass window over the altar of St. Catherine in the corner of the transept to the left is by Stefano da Pandino (1432). The altar has statues of St. Jerome and St. Augustine, early works of Cristoforo Solari, and some little sculptures of earlier date, doubtless from some older shrine. The tabernacle on the right, with a figure of God the Father, is by one of the Campionesi. On the third altar in the nave on this side is preserved the wooden crucifix carried by S. Carlo in procession round the city during the Great Plague of 1576. A little altar further on, with modern sculptures, is decorated with beautiful Quattrocento arabesques, fragments of a monument sculptured by Amadeo in 1480 for Alessio Tarchetta, a general of the Sforza. Other parts of the monument are preserved in the Castello. Beyond is the tomb of Gio. Angelo Arcimboldi, Archbishop of Milan from 1550 to 1555. Lower down we see some twelfth and thirteenth century figures representing the writers of the New Testament, in Verona marble, probably parts of an ambone or pulpit, and perhaps some of the figures of saints with which Archbishop Uberto Crivelli, afterwards Urban III., is recorded to have decorated the old Sta. Maria Maggiore in 1185. The Baptistery is on this side of the nave, between two of the pillars. The font is an ancient basin of red porphyry, said to have once been in the Baths of Maximian Hercules; it was found in S. Dionysius, with the remains of that saintly prelate of Milan inside. These were translated to a place in front of the High Altar. The canopy over the font is an ornate late Renaissance work designed by il Pellegrini.