Description
With its intricate flying buttresses and ornate religious sculptures, the Duomo di Milano represents the pinnacle of Italian Gothic architecture. The drawing recreated here is part of a series proposed by the architect Paolo Cesa Bianchi (1840–1920) for the decoration of the interior vaults of the Milan Cathedral. In the 19th century there were many architects, each with their own unique vision, who submitted design proposals such as this. The submission by Bianchi, crafted in 1881, centres around the use of arabesques, which create a sense of a faux relief arborescence over a golden background. The design proposals of these architects, carefully preserved in the Archive of the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, allow us to discover an unprecedented Cathedral, the one imagined by architects of the past and then, for various reasons, never built. We are honoured to partner with Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano to bring this example of sublime architectural vision to new