Seven Italian Postcards
Card 1: Twin Cathedrals
Looming in
the vortex of Milan the Duomo presides from the
east side of a large square named for it, and the cathedral
makes small all who see it. Tiers of carved gray-pink marble
grow wildly skyward, bristling with spires, arches, buttresses,
and countless statues. Up close, these figures depict a
pantheon of saints and martyrs, beasts and gargoyles, verily
the beautiful and the damned who have witnessed much since
the cathedral was first begun in the Lombardian capital,
in that plague-free year of 1386.
Through high
bronze doors peasants and guildsmen, farmers, shopkeepers,
bishops, mothers, princes, killers, milkmaids, and kings
have all passed during the ensuing half-dozen centuries-drawn
by faith or hope, fear or skepticism-to worship or simply
gaze at an amazing concoction of architecture and the occult.
Inside, upheld
by pillars thick as redwood trees, the main transcept draws
the eye upward to the heavens-which is the point of its
design, after all-then down and forward past stained glass
windows, carved wood, pews, votives, mosaic, shadow. Decorum
and mysticism intertwined. I couldn't know what manner of
craftsmen saw this masterwork rise from the plain, all those
who labored together in different centuries, obeying the
same plan. That the third largest cathedral in the world
achieved unity amid eons of war, disease, famine, and revolt
is something of a miracle right there, liturgy or not, and
true reverence can be felt for the merely, elegantly earthly.
In a side altar
hundreds of candles burned redly before a kneeling few,
and nearby in a wooden box a silvery priest prepared to
receive confession under a dim amber bulb; he adjusted his
stole and vestments, smoothed his hair, prayed. This tableau
had more than a touch of a Renaissance painting about it,
so I studied it a moment and let it freeze in my mind, like
this postcard snapshot. And I, a furtive intruder.
Picture Page:
Places
Card 2: Piazza
del Duomo
