The Colleoni Chapel (Italian: Cappella Colleoni) is a Renaissance funerary chapel built in 1476 at the behest of Bartolomeo Colleoni as his mausoleum, designed by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo and dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It is located in the square of the Bergamo Cathedral, next to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
History
Commissioned by Bartolomeo Colleoni as his own mausoleum, sepulcrum sibi vivus extruxsit [...] pro patrie munificenzia et imperii maiestate, dedicated to Saints Bartholomew, Mark and John the Baptist, it was built between 1470 and 1476 but not completely finished, as some works were added later. The construction was initially supervised by the condottiero's friend, the architect Alessio Agliardi, who, as a member of the Confraternity of Misericordia Maggiore, kept in touch with the interested parties to obtain the various authorizations, both ecclesiastical and municipal, necessary for the construction.
There has been some debate about these dates, especially the year in which construction began: some say 1470, others, like Belotti, 1472. Both dates can be accepted if one gives credence to the 17th century writer Donato Calvi who in 1676 wrote that on June 1, 1470 [...] the foundations were laid today of the Chapel or Oratory adjacent to Santa Maria Maggiore, built by the famous captain Bartolomeo in his perpetual memory, where his glorious Sepulcher was later erected. However, all the notarial documentation consulted attests that no work had been undertaken until 1472. On March 6, 1470, the favorite daughter of the condottiero, Medea, had died, and this could have given a greater motivation and a push to the realization of the mausoleum, which would suggest that Calvi could have given a date, if not possible, certainly desired and motivated by Colleoni.
The actual construction of the monumental complex began, however, in 1472 with the demolition of the sacristy of Santa Maria Maggiore and the portico in front of it. The existence of this sacristy at the beginning of 1472 is proven by a plea from the rectors of the church to Colleoni that eum rogabant ne destrueret.
Manu militari
The land where the chapel was built was originally used for three purposes: there was a small chapel, the cimerchium, closed by a gate, which was the place where the valuable liturgical furnishings were kept that were not used in ordinary ceremonies, but only for important occasions; it was therefore not the sacristy for daily use, being also far from the presbytery but a safe place, while a part of the land was free municipal land.The demolition of the sacristy of Santa Maria Maggiore to make room for the mausoleum raised the question of whether it was an act of arrogance on the part of Colleoni, tired of the bureaucratic delays that were holding up the start of the work, or whether it was done with the agreement of the church administrators. Colleoni had asked for authorization from the municipal administration to build the mausoleum in a location that was not clearly identified, given the various changes that the church and the buildings surrounding it had undergone over time. Perhaps it was the Palazzo della Ragione itself that was to be demolished, in urgent need of restoration, which was carried out in the early years of the sixteenth century to a design by Pietro Isabello. However, this remains an assumption, considering that the condottiero wanted the mausoleum to be the focal point of the square.
The reading of the accounting ledger of the new sacristy where it says that the previous one had been ruinata ac accepta per Illustrem condam Bertolomeum colionum gave rise to what Monsignor Angelo Meli, one of the leading scholars of the chapel, defines as the legend of armed intervention. The term “ruinata” was understood to be the consequence of violent action by the military power, while it was intended to express only the physical fact of the demolition itself, without implying that it was the result of force.
In support of the agreed demolition is the statement of Vanoto Colombi, a loyal follower of the captain general, who on April 4, 1483, testified that the sacristy
destructa fuit et ruinata de consensu tamen presidentium et gubernantium ipsam eclesiam
was destroyed and demolished with the consent of the rectors and administrators of the church itself
However, Colombi's affection and loyalty towards the Captain make his version of events suspect. The date 1472 is supported by the statements of Alessio Agliardi, who declares on the document evaluating the damage and the consequent compensation that he was a member of the MIA Foundation, which was active in the period from February 1472 to March 1473.
The reconstruction of the documents by Meli leaves no room for doubt. However, while legends survive, the truth is obscured by time. What is certain is that Colleoni's power and charisma were such that he could have imposed his will without the intervention of soldiers. Colleoni had promised to rebuild the sacristy in its new location, but at his death in 1483, the promise had not yet been kept, and in that very year the Congregation of the Misericordia Maggiore sent a request to the Republic of Venice to ensure that the promises were kept. In conclusion, it certainly cannot be denied that the first stone could have been laid in 1470, for a building perhaps of smaller dimensions, as indicated by Calvi, and that the sacristy remained until 1472, because the condottiero did not want the cimerchium to be destroyed immediately, also serving as a chapel for services, and was only demolished in 1472.
The doubt, unfounded, would persist but it is of little importance when compared to the splendor of the mausoleum that Bartolomeo Colleoni, even though he wanted it for himself, left to his city, enriching its artistic heritage with a work of universal beauty.
The final date of completion of the work is considered to be 1476, also in consideration of the fact that Amadeo was working on the Certosa di Pavia in 1474, something he would not have been allowed to do if the chapel had not already been completed, and that in 1475 he asked for the rest of his payment. However, the observation of some construction details and some notarial documents testify that even at the beginning of the sixteenth century, work was still being done on the arrangement of details of the façade and the cornices.
The mystery of Colleoni's remains
For centuries it was believed that the body of Bartolomeo Colleoni was not in the mausoleum but in some other place, as the sarcophagi were found to be empty at every inspection, giving rise to an intense historical mystery about the fate of the condottiere's remains.
There was even a legend that the coffin was moved from the ark to another place, perhaps under the floor of Santa Maria Maggiore, by order of St. Charles Borromeo, based on the real fact that after an apostolic visit of the Cardinal, in 1575, some relics were actually removed from the chapel.
[...] vexilla appensa tollantur intra triduum, nec ullo modo restituantur.
[...] the hanging banners are to be removed within three days and will not be replaced.
—
The legend is not supported by any mention in the acts of the pastoral visit, and it is inconceivable that this omission was deliberate or accidental, especially in view of the ecclesiastical reform that Borromeo was carrying out with strength and determination: such an important move, especially felt by the community of Bergamo, could not have been made without a formal provision. On the other hand, the Cardinal kept Medea's coffin in her tomb in the church of Santa Maria di Basella in Urgnano, and to have done otherwise with respect to that of his father Bartolomeo would have been contradictory and incomprehensible. It is probable that the rumor spread because of the need to give a rational explanation for the disappearance of Colleoni's remains.
The solution of the mystery seemed to come on January 14, 1950, with the reopening of a massive stone coffin found on July 11, 1651 under the floor of Santa Maria Maggiore, containing several bones of very high stature and size, and with the bones a wooden stick and a sword. The commission present at the exhumation hastily declared that the bones belonged to Colleoni, without pointing out the obvious contradictions. The following facts were not explained: the use of an early medieval ark; the absence of any inscription on the coffin; the presence of a wooden sword instead of a real one; the height of the skeleton, which did not correspond to the stature that Colleoni was said to have had. The doubts, which were never allayed, led to a re-examination of the remains by a commission appointed by the Ministry of Education, chaired by Father Agostino Gemelli, who on May 21, 1956 ruled out that the bones in question belonged to Colleoni: a story ended, but the mystery remained, and in fact the mystery of the true origin of the bones also arose. Perhaps they belonged to a medieval warrior, while the origin of the wooden sword remained unexplained.
The solution
Interest in the fate of Colleoni's remains had diminished over the centuries, despite sporadic inspections, until 1922, when, on June 15, during an official visit, Victor Emmanuel III asked those accompanying him where the condottiero's remains were, creating an uncomfortable situation because no one was able to give an answer. As he was leaving, the king advised the prior to search again, find the great condottiero and report to him. This event, particularly embarrassing and, in a certain sense, humiliating for the authoritative guests who should have given an answer, led to new research and new hypotheses, which, however, did not solve the ancient mystery, aggravated by the anonymity of the coffin contained in the sarcophagus found in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Only Monsignor Meli insisted that Colleoni's body was inside the chapel, because that was what all the witnesses of the time said. Marin Sanudo, who described the chapel in 1483, was particularly explicit: This [chapel] was built during the lifetime of Bartholamio Coglion [...] Captain of the General Signoria of Terra; he was lord of Martinengo, Roman, Malpaga and other castles. Here his body is buried in a most splendid tomb. This report, written several years after the events, is added to other, more ambiguous, but all consistent reports of the burial inside the chapel, with no evidence to the contrary, except that the arks had been emptied. The attempts made after Victor Emmanuel III's visit were unsuccessful, but they brought the problem back to the attention of the historical-scientific community, thanks to Meli's conviction that the presence of a coffin inside the chapel, even if not proven, could not be ruled out.
In 1968 the Lerici Foundation became involved and in November 1969 sent its own technicians equipped with new magnetometric prospecting instruments. The inspection took place on November 21, 1969 and consisted of two almost simultaneous phases, one empirical and the other geophysical. The floor of the main ark was probed with a stick, which produced an unusual resonance, while the accidental fall of a piece of the covering slab produced a crack in the underlying axis through which what appeared to be bones could be glimpsed. At the same time, the geophysical survey indicated the presence of various arranged metal objects. At a quarter to two o'clock, a corrugated layer of limestone was broken through, revealing a long, flat chest underneath. The chest was opened at about four in the afternoon and the coffin of Bartolomeo Colleoni appeared, arms crossed, in a good state of preservation, wearing what a Sforza spy had described as a crimson satin coat: socks, a Turkish silver cloth, gloves, a sword and spurs, together with a staff and a cap. Everything matched except for the sword, which wasn't found immediately, but on February 5, 1970, when the coffin was cleaned: it was hidden by the body of the Captain General.
The coffin also contained a lead plaque commemorating the deceased:
BARTOLOMEUS COLIONUSNOBILIS BERGO. PRIVILEGIOANDEGAVENSIS ILL.MI IMPERIJVENETORUM IMPERATORGENERALIS INVICTUSVIXIT ANNOS LXXXIMPERAVIT IIII ET XXOBIIT. III. NO. NOVEMBRISCCCCLXXV SUPRA MILLE