Woman's Club of Lodi

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CIVIC TEMPLE OF THE CROWNED MADONNA The church of the Crowned Madonna was built as a civic temple of the town of Lodi and is one of the main historical monuments and a real jewel important both for its architecture and its paintings It is called "civic temple" because it has always belonged to the town and not to the church and you can see the municipal coat of arms in the decoration The building of one of the greatest masterpieces in the Lombard Renaissance has a strange origin at the end of the 15th century a brothel stood in the Lomellini district and on its façade there was a fresco of a Madonna Brawls, duels, quarrels were quite common According to the legend in September 1487 during one of these brawls the image of the Madonna started to weep and invited the bystanders to build a temple devoted to her by saying “May so many quarrels and so much lewdness stop and such an impure house be dedicated to my modesty“ This extraordinary event prompted the people from Lodi to start the building in 1488 and finish it in 1493 The civic temple of the Crowned Madonna has some features in common with the basilica of Saint Mary of the Cross in Crema They share the same architect who planned the building Giovanni Battagio he worked in Milan from 1465 as a stonemason and from 1474 as the duke’s engineer He left the works in Lodi and in Crema perhaps because he had some problems with the assegnors and was replaced by Gian Giacomo Dolcebuono another apprentice of Donato Bramante’s Another feature in common with Saint Mary of the Cross in Crema is the choice of the central plan which was considered the best way to contemplate God by the architects of the period starting from Leon Battista Alberti Moreover it can be considered the first Renaissance building with a compact central plan in northern Italy The octagonal scheme is extremely important because it has symbolic philosophical and theological value The inside is divided into three levels the first is made up of eight chapels with a trapezoidal plan four of them are the chapels of Saint Paul Saint John Baptist Saint Antony the Abbot and the chapel of the Crucifixion In the two niches near the entrance you can see the organ and the choir Giovanni Battagio was inspired by Saint Satiro's Sacristy in Milan a work by his master Bramante But the apprentice worked it out in his own way and planned eight trapeziums which share the same width and have converging walls in order to increase the perspective The second level is made up of the women’s gallery which overlooks the hall and has large double lancet windows with blue and gold small columns The third level is made up of the dome with round windows which were lit by the corresponding openings in the outer wall New studies have pointed out that both the planimetric and the volumetric ratios follow the same rules which determine the musical harmony Perhaps they were somehow influenced by the studies of Franchino Gaffurio from Lodi who worked in that period and was one of the best musical theorists We can say that the Temple of the Crowned Madonna is harmonious not only because it has a perfect proportion in its architectural elements and spaces but also because it shows an organic and well-balanced distribution of the sources of lighting The temple is decorated with frescoes paintings on wood and canvas by the best artists between the 15th century and the beginning of the 19th century The first artists who worked there were the Della Chiesa Brothers and Bergognone But the decoration of the church is dominated by the Piazza Family with the brothers Alberto and Martino in the first period and, starting from 1529, with Callisto Martino’s son the best representative of this family of artists from Lodi The Piazza are responsible for the paintings of the chapels but also decorated the pilasters folded as books which mark the eight sides of the church with putti, mythological figures and floral elements At the end of the 17th century there was an important change because the wall behind the main altar was knocked down to make room for a new chorus At the same time an apse, painted by Legnanino, was created The temple has lost a lot of its original pictorial and chromatic decoration the vault was completely painted with golden stars on a blue background but this decoration has now disappeared because of water seepages they caused the partial fall of the covering which had to be remade and redecorated in the 19th century Even today there are some preservation problems Recently some frescoed plaster of the women’s gallery and the chapel of the Crucifixion have been damaged because of rain seepages which have been found and removed but a new restoration work has been made necessary Rotary Club Adda Lodigiano has promoted and sponsored a fund raising for this art recovery because if we save our artistic heritage at the same time we can keep our memory alive The restoration work has been signed by architect Angelo Cavanna and Alessandro Broglia and Fabio Zignani have worked as restorers of cultural assets This building which is very dear to the citizens of Lodi is ready to face this new restoration work As Rotary Club Adda Lodigiano has underlined spending to save cultural assets is not a loss but on the contrary it is an investment which safeguards our culture but at the same time it can create an economic return if we consider that our country is visited by so many tourists The present economic crisis can be overcome also thanks to these enterprises which by respecting our past can lead us to a better future