THE QUESTION OF ATTRIBUTION

Today it is generally accepted that Alessi was the architect behind the project to complete the pilgrimage church of S. Maria presso S. Celso, through the addition of new exterior and interior façades, and an internal choir and fitments. We know from the documents that he was first recorded as being present at the site in April 1563, when he was paid six gold scudi for his design of the exterior façade, and his continued involvement in the project is recorded in the church's account books up until mid-1568.Footnote ³ Included among these accounts are three further payments that relate specifically to his production of drawings. The first of these is a payment made in July 1564 for the purchase of a book for the capomaestro, that is Alessi, specifically for him to draw in.Footnote ⁴ This reference to a book must relate to the drawings today held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana as single folios, but which were probably originally bound as a least one and, probably two, books of drawings.Footnote ⁵ The second and third payments were made in 1568, towards the end of Alessi's time at S. Maria presso S. Celso, and appear to be the final two payments made to Alessi for his drawings of the façade, choir, organ and Eucharistic tabernacle: the first payment was for a remaining 295 lire out of fifty gold scudi, and the second was for a balance of 295 lire out of 100 scudi, which were owed to Alessi by the church deputies, the administrative body in charge of overseeing the work.Footnote ⁶ Presumably, therefore the deputies had two ongoing accounts with Alessi, worth fifty and 100 gold scudi respectively, for payment for his drawings.

Despite this documentary evidence, scholars have still questioned Alessi's authorship of the 112 drawings held in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. These drawings depict the exterior and interior façades, choir, organ housing and Eucharistic tabernacle, all of which we know were commissioned from Alessi by the deputies. This contention over the drawings' attribution, however, goes back to the 1770s when Francesco Bernardino Ferrari, who at the time owned them, assigned them all to Martino Bassi, the architect who had taken over from Alessi following his departure from Milan in 1569. His account of the matter, written in his index to the collection, is explicit:

In 1940, however, Giovanni Rocco reattributed all of the drawings to Alessi, citing as evidence a document relating to the church's choir, which mentions a drawing of that choir made by Alessi, but since then opinions have been divided.Footnote ⁸ Augusto Cavallari-Murat argued in 1960 that only the drawings in the folder relating to the façade and choir are by Alessi;Footnote ⁹ and another, somewhat regressive, view was expressed by Maria Luisa Gatti Perer in her 1965 assessment of the Ferrari collection, in which she failed to question Ferrari's attribution and simply reattributed all the drawings in the folder to Bassi.Footnote ¹⁰ Subsequently, Aurora Scotti argued in 1974 that the majority of the drawings in it are by Alessi, but that some of them show the hands of collaborators and the workshop;Footnote ¹¹ and Nancy Houghton Brown, in her 1982 PhD thesis, accepted that Alessi had a draughtsman for the scale drawings of the details he had designed, which the draughtsman then annotated. She also suggested that Alessi used more than one draughtsman for his work on the church, to explain the differences in handling that she perceived between the earlier and later folios.Footnote ¹² I will be arguing, however, that all the drawings in the folder were actually produced by Alessi himself.

There is a similar situation as regards the Sacro Monte drawings. Thanks to the work of Stefania Stefani Perrone, scholars now accept that Alessi was the architect behind the project to redevelop the pilgrimage site of the Sacro Monte, but questions are still raised as to whether he executed the 318 drawings in the Libro dei Misteri.Footnote ¹³ In her critical commentary to the Libro, Stefani Perrone herself stated that the Libro was largely Alessi's work, but she fell short of claiming that all its pages were by him. This was because she identified two hands responsible for the annotations, one writing the majority of them in the same brown ink used for the drawings themselves and the other using a red ink, and she suggested that the red-ink annotations could be the work of an un-named assistant, who Alessi mentioned in a letter written in 1568 to his Genoese patrons, the Sauli.Footnote ¹⁴ However, a comparison between the red- and brown-ink handwriting strongly suggests that they are actually from the same hand.Footnote ¹⁵ What is more, the letter only states that Alessi was hoping to find someone to work for him, if he felt it necessary, and it does not specify the project he wanted assistance with, so it is difficult to link the letter with the preparation of the Libro, particularly when it is remembered that he had been working on the Varallo project since 1565, which is three years before the date of the letter. Despite these problems, Scotti has still argued recently that Alessi used assistants to produce the drawings for the Libro and she has been trying to establish their identities.Footnote ¹⁶ Presumably, this is the same group of assistants that Scotti argued were involved in the production of the drawings for S. Maria presso S. Celso. My belief, by contrast, is that the drawings in the Libro, like those in the Ambrosiana, are in fact all autograph.

In order to substantiate my hypothesis that the drawings in both of these collections are all in Alessi's hand it is necessary to conduct a thorough analysis, in both collections, of the handwriting on the various folios and of the drawing style. A comparison of the drawings in the Ambrosiana folder and the Libro dei Misteri also helps to confirm they are all the work of one man, and that this must be Alessi.

We are fortunate that numerous examples of Alessi's handwriting have survived in letters written by Alessi in relation to the construction of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano in Genoa, which today can be found in the Archivio Durazzo-Giustiniani in Genoa. One of these letters, which is unquestionably autograph, provides a specimen of Alessi's distinctive signature and also includes a small sketch of the plan of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano, the church commissioned by the Sauli family (Fig. 1).Footnote ¹⁷ The handwriting seen in the annotations to the sketch matches that seen in the letter as a whole, which proves that Alessi wrote it all himself, rather than just adding his signature to a letter produced by a notary or other figure, as seems to have been the case with some of the others in the archive. By comparing the handwriting in this letter with that found in the Ambrosiana folder and the Libro dei Misteri it becomes possible to demonstrate that Alessi was also responsible for the annotations to these drawings, and so move closer to a positive identification of Alessi as the draughtsman of both corpuses. For this comparison, there are two especially useful sheets from the two collections. With regard to the drawings for S. Maria presso S. Celso in the Ambrosiana folder, all these are annotated, but many of the annotations are brief in nature and just relate to technical information or cross reference other drawings in the collection; so, for the purposes of our comparison, we will focus of Folio 105 (Fig. 2), which shows the location of the planned Eucharistic tabernacle, because it includes a longer note than in the other folios.Footnote ¹⁸ As regards the Libro dei Misteri, we will examine a page from the prologue, which sets out the reasons why the book was produced and which is written in the first person – a reason in itself for suggesting that Alessi must be its author (Fig. 3). The handwriting seen in the prologue is unquestionably the same as that of the annotations to the Libro's 318 folios of drawings.

Fig. 1. Galeazzo Alessi, letter from Alessi to the Sauli, 26 July 1562 (Genoa, Archivio Durazzo-Giustiniani; with permission)

Fig. 2. Galeazzo Alessi, floorplan of the chancel of S. Maria presso S. Celso indicating the location of the high altar (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S.149 Sup. B, fol. 105; with permission)

Fig. 3. Galeazzo Alessi, prologue to the Libro dei Misteri (Varallo, Biblioteca Civica, Libro dei Misteri, fol. 4; with permission)

When these three documents are examined side-by-side, it is clear that there are some differences in the handwriting's general appearance. The writer of the Genoese letter – i.e. Alessi – was much more generous than the writers of the other two documents in the amount of spacing he allowed between individual letters and individual words, and the letters are in general much larger. In addition, the handwriting in the letter tends to curve more and slant more to the right. These differences, however can be explained by the letter's less formal nature, which did not require script of such care as that in the other two documents, which, as I will be arguing, belong to ‘best versions’ of compendia produced for presentation to the patron. Alessi's letter is also relatively short, written on a large piece of paper which gave him plenty of room to spread his writing out. This is in contrast both to the tabernacle drawing, where the draftsman needed to squash in his writing beneath the floor plan of the chancel, and to the Libro prologue, where the author had to fit his lengthy text between the narrow lines that are faintly scored into all the individual pages. The fact that the writing seen in the tabernacle drawing and the Libro prologue was for a ‘best version’ and had to be fitted into a restricted amount of space, imposed restraints on the sizes of the letters and the amount of spacing between them, and it also encouraged a more perpendicular style.

When the formation of the individual letters is compared, however, it becomes very clear that the three documents are all in the same hand and that this is Alessi's. Alessi, for example, forms the letter ‘h’ in a very distinctive way, in that he does not take the stem of the letter down to the baseline, but finishes it instead some way above it, at the point of the horizontal bar, while the stem of the letter curves to the right, and this is especially evident in the word che that is found throughout all three documents.Footnote ¹⁹ Also characteristic of Alessi's hand is his letter ‘z’, formed without a tail that descends below the baseline as is more usual for cursive text, and which can be seen again and again in his signature (‘Galeazzo Alessio’), but also in the tabernacle drawing. In fact, when the formation of the letters ‘i’,‘d’, ‘l’ and ‘m’, and almost every other letter of the alphabet, is analysed and compared across all three documents, it becomes abundantly clear that all three are in Alessi's hand. There can, admittedly be some occasional discrepancies, such as in the letter ‘f’, but in this case we find that Alessi had at least three different ways of forming that letter, all of which can appear within the same document. The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from all this, therefore, is that it is clear from viewing the three documents side-by-side that they are all in Alessi's hand, and that this distinctive hand is also identical to that seen in the annotations to all the other drawings in the Ambrosiana folder and the Libro dei Misteri.

As for the actual drawings, these can be analysed, in respect not only to their style of draughtsmanship but also to physical characteristics such as the types of ink and paper used, in order to show that it was Alessi who was responsible for all of these as well. All the drawings in the Ambrosiana folder are executed in the same brown ink on sheets of the same size (420 × 280 mm).Footnote ²⁰ From watermarks that are visible we can see that the drawings were executed on two different types of paper. The watermark that appears most often in the Ambrosiana sheets is one of a gloved hand with a flower with six petals above the hand's middle finger, and this has been dated, on the basis of Briquet's compendium of watermarks, to the late 1560s.Footnote ²¹ This same watermark is found on drawings held in the Varallo State Archive (Archivio di Stato), which are working drawings relating to those in the Libro dei Misteri, many of which are in all likelihood the work of Alessi too.Footnote ²² Many of the State Archive drawings also correspond to those in the Ambrosiana folder in size, measuring between 430 and 450 mm in height and between 265 to 290 mm in width, which indicates that the Milan and Varallo drawings were all made on paper of the same type. The second watermark, which is found on Folios 54–69 of the Ambrosiana folder, is of a sun with a human face encircled by rays, which, again according to Briquet, dates from the 1560s to around 1580 and is associated with Vicenza, Reggio Emilia and Milan;Footnote ²³ and this second watermark is also found throughout the Libro dei Misteri. The concurrence of these two watermarks and the close similarities in the size of the sheets indicates, therefore, that the two sets of drawings were produced by the same person during the 1560s using paper available in the Milan area.

Turning now to drawing style, it is very evident that in both sets this is very similar. The elevational representations in the Ambrosiana folder are unvaryingly drawn with the light falling from left to right across the page, and a similarly consistent direction of light is seen in the drawings in the Libro dei Misteri. Although such lighting is a common convention in architectural drawings of this period, the consistency of the technique across both sets of drawings still adds weight to the argument that the drawings in both sets are the work of the same individual. Moreover, the shadows that are cast by this light are invariably created either by hatching (tightly packed horizontal lines in the case of vertical sections such as through a column shaft, or vertical lines for the shadows beneath a horizontal feature such as a cornice), or else by ink wash. The use of an ink wash can also be seen in the folios of the Libro and is, therefore, consistent with Alessi's technique, and so is not a reason to doubt his authorship of some of the drawings, as has been asserted by Scotti.Footnote ²⁴

Another very characteristic aspect of Alessi's drawing style is to be seen in his depiction of figurative elements, such as the statues to be carved by sculptors that populate the niches of his façades, and architectural details such as caryatids and leonine heads, which are found on the drawings for the façade and choir of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Figs 4 and 5) as well as the particularly lively figure of an imagined organist included on a section drawing through the façade illustrating the relationship between exterior and interior (Fig. 6). This figure plays the organ with great gusto and well illustrates the playfulness that often characterises Alessi's work, as do the snarling faces of the lions that support the pediment of the exterior façade (see Fig. 17, later). Yet the technique used to capture such small-scale figures, and show the forms of their bodies, their fabric drapes and gesturing arms, is often one of remarkable economy involving only a few minimal lines, while facial features are often captured simply by two dots for the eyes and a slight shadow to indicate the nose and mouth. The same technique is to be seen in the sketches of the tableaux vivants scenes inside the Sacro Monte chapels in the Libro dei Misteri (Fig. 7).Footnote ²⁵

Fig. 4. Galeazzo Alessi, exterior façade of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 2; with permission)

Fig. 5. Galeazzo Alessi, Detail of the exterior façade of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 2; with permission)

Fig. 6. Galeazzo Alessi, cross-section through the centre of the exterior and interior façades of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 4; with permission)

Fig. 7. Galeazzo Alessi, interior of chapel dedicated to the Baptism of Christ (Varallo, Biblioteca Civica, Libro dei Misteri, fol. 40; with permission)

When it came to depicting the facial features of figures on a slightly larger scale, Alessi did something that seems to be peculiar to him: he created the eye using a form not dissimilar to today's ’@’ symbol, where the ‘a’ in the middle forms the eye, and the curve around the edge creates the eyebrow and sometimes also defines the length of the nose. This ’@’ feature, which is very distinctive and helps to confirm his authorship of the drawings both in the Ambrosiana folder and the Libro dei Misteri, is restricted to figures of a certain size, where a small dot will not suffice and where greater detail is not possible. It is seen, however, in many of Alessi's accepted drawings, such as one for a Eucharistic tabernacle in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where it is used for the cherub supporting the figure of the crucified Christ (Fig. 8). It is also seen in drawings for S. Maria presso S. Celso, in Folio 2 (for the female masks in the frieze below the façade's main pediment), Folio 3 (for the heads of the caryatids of the first level), as well as Folios 9 and 11 (Figs 4, 9 and 10). The same eyes again can be seen in a drawing of a fountain for the Sacro Monte di Varallo illustrated on the Libro dei Misteri's Folio 138 (Fig. 11).

Fig. 8. Galeazzo Alessi, design of 1569 for a tabernacle surmounted by Christ on the Cross and praying figures (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org)

Fig. 9. Galeazzo Alessi, interior façade of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol.3; with permission)

Fig. 10. Galeazzo Alessi, frame marked B.C. for exterior façade of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 11; with permission)

Fig. 11. Galeazzo Alessi, drawing showing the fountain of the Probatic Pool (Varallo, Biblioteca Civica, Libro dei Misteri, fol. 138; with permission)

Other typical features of Alessi's drawing style are recognisable in figurative elements represented on a much larger scale and therefore in much greater detail, such as the series of female heads on drawings for the interior façade and choir of S. Maria presso S. Celso. These drawings reveal a very sophisticated understanding of how to model faces in light and shade so as to appear truly three-dimensional, as well as a remarkable ability to give expressive form to faces as they scowl at us from the sheet (Fig. 12). Also characteristic of Alessi's style is the way of representing non-architectural details such as flames, as seen for example in Folio 2, which shows the exterior façade, and Folio 91 which shows the choir's back wall (Figs 4 and 13). With their lively flickering, these flames, which are depicted with a few simple sinuous strokes, are very similar to those in drawings from the Libro dei Misteri, for example Folio 81 which depicts the screen for the chapel that houses the scene of the ‘Son of the Widow’ (Fig. 14). It thus appears that the drawings in the two collections have such a consistency of draughtsmanship that they must be considered to be the work of one hand, and that this consistency, when considered in conjunction with the handwriting and the similar use of ink and paper shows conclusively that they are the work of Alessi.

Fig. 12. Galeazzo Alessi, female head for a cartouche in the choir of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 95; with permission)

Fig. 13. Galeazzo Alessi, choir wall for S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 91; with permission)

Fig. 14. Galeazzo Alessi, screen for the chapel of the Son of the Widow (Varallo, Biblioteca Civica, Libro dei Misteri, fol. 81; with permission)

ARCHITECT AS DRAUGHTSMAN AND THE USE OF DRAWINGS AS ‘REMOTE CONTROL’

Having therefore established that all of the folios in the Ambrosiana folder and the Libro dei Misteri are autograph drawings by Alessi, we can now turn to a detailed examination of the two collections. By examining the way in which the collections of drawings are arranged, the way Alessi employed an alphanumerical system to link one drawing to another, and the type of drawings deployed by Alessi (i.e. plan, elevation and section), it is possible reach conclusions about how Alessi used such architectural drawings in his practice. What is more, by looking at the two collections in relation to other drawings Alessi produced earlier in his career, it will be possible to outline the way in which drawings took on an increasingly important role in his architectural practice, as a means of managing remotely several architectural sites at the same time. This change will be linked to the development of the role of the architect more generally in this period and the growing separation between masons, who were involved in the actual construction, and architects themselves, who were responsible for the conception of the design.

Let us start then with an examination of the contents of the Ambrosiana folder which, as will now be seen, follows an orderly sequence. The pagination of each folio is indicated at the top right of each page, but in some cases the original page number has been crossed out and changed. The crossing out is in Alessi's hand and seems to reflect instances where changes have been made to the project and new drawings added. The collection begins with Folio 1, a drawing of the floor plan for the church. Since Alessi had been brought in to complete S. Maria presso S. Celso rather than rebuild the church, the floor plan was included at the start in order to provide context for the façades, choir and tabernacle that Alessi designed for the church and which are illustrated in detail in the drawings that follow. Next come drawings of the exterior and interior façades (Folios 2 and 3), and a series of cross section drawings taken through the façade at various different points (Folios 4–6), which show how the exterior and interior façades correspond with each other (Figs 4, 6 and 9). We then have drawings of the details of the exterior and interior façades, including of the organ housing that was to be inserted into the interior elevation. This is followed by twenty drawings relating to the choir, including two drawings that show the choir stalls and choir wall in their entirety and a series of drawings detailing the component parts that make the stalls and wall (Fig. 13). Finally, the last group of drawings in the Ambrosiana folder features the Eucharistic Tabernacle (Figs 2 and 19, later).

Amongst the drawings in the Ambrosiana folder, four stand out as being of key importance: Folios 2, 3, 85 and 91. These folios present overall schemes for an architectural element (exterior façade, interior façade, choir stalls and choir wall, respectively) to which subsequent drawings are related by way of an alphanumerical referencing system (Figs 4, 9 and 13). The use of such a referencing system was not unique to Alessi and had been used most notably by Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola in his Regola delli cinque ordini d'architettura, published in 1562, just a year before Alessi began work at S. Maria presso S. Celso. The use of an alphanumerical referencing system can also be found in a drawing of the tomb and balustrade for the Capella Ricci in S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome, which has been linked to Daniele da Volterra and is found today in the Royal Library at Windsor.Footnote ²⁶

Folio 2 is the largest drawing in the collection, as extra paper has been added to the top and the right-hand side. The drawing is labelled down the right-hand side with references to the three levels and what Alessi calls the ‘parapet’ zones, which run between each level, plus the ‘frieze’, which we might more readily identify as a Leonine order, below the crowning pediment. Many architectural elements are given a letter or letters, for example the large frame in the second level above the central entrance is labelled ‘B.C.’ (although this coupling remains unexplained). As mentioned, this use of letters to identify various architectural elements can be found in the drawings of other sixteenth-century architects, but in this example we can see just how important they were. Each of the letters refers to a later drawing in the collection, which shows the same feature, but in greater detail and sometimes with modifications, so Folio 2 was the key for anyone trying to understand the relationships between all the various parts. There are also notes in Alessi's hand on this sheet, which stipulate the subjects of the sculptural works that were to be housed within the architectural frames.

This system of labelling the architectural features with letters, sometimes in combination with additional notes referring to related drawings, enables the reader to find what they are looking for.

Thus, following Folio 2, there are then fifty-one other drawings depicting the various individual architectural elements that make up the external façade. Many of these drawings represent the principal architectural elements, for example the sculptural frame with its pediment in Folio 7 which shows the feature on Folio 2 marked as ‘B.C.’, and this is then followed, in Folio 8, by a detail of its supporting ‘parapet’, to use Alessi's phrase (Figs 15 and 16). Alessi also produced supplementary drawings that recorded any changes made to particular elements. For example, Folio 7 includes a note, in Alessi's hand, that this drawing is no longer needed because it has been changed, and reference is made to Folio 11. Folio 11 does indeed show the same frame ‘B.C.’, but now with changes (Fig. 10). For example, the garlands that had previously hung down the side of the frame have been removed and the brackets previously supporting them have been made more ornate.

Fig. 15. Galeazzo Alessi, frame marked B.C. for the exterior façade of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 7; with permission)

Fig. 16. Galeazzo Alessi, frame marked B.C. with its pediment for the exterior façade of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 8; with permission)

Folio 11 also includes a small drawing of the profile for the cornice of this window frame, which is marked A, and is accompanied with a note indicating that it is also shown in an enlarged drawing later on.Footnote ²⁷ Also included in the collection are full-size drawings showing the profiles of features such as entablatures and the mouldings for frames and, in one remarkable case, the profile of the moulding that supports the snarling jaws of the leonine order found under the main pediment (Fig. 17). These life-sized drawings could then be recreated as templates in paper or wood for translation into stone.Footnote ²⁸

Fig. 17. Galeazzo Alessi, life-size drawing of the moulding of the leonine order for the exterior façade of S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 51; with permission)

We also know from Alessi's notes that these drawings were to be used in conjunction with wooden models. On Folio 29, which depicts a niche marked as ‘F’ on Folio 2, the note explains that the niche has been altered and that a model of the façade should be consulted instead.Footnote ²⁹ Alessi had produced a model of the whole façade when he first received the commission in 1563, but he also made supplementary models of parts of it as construction progressed. What we see from drawings such as Folio 29, therefore, is that Alessi's design evolved over time and that smaller models were produced to offer up-to-date representations of particular parts of the façade that included any changes to the original model. The drawing annotations also reveal that Alessi updated his drawings so as to track the church's evolving design. For example, Folio 7 includes two annotations, the first crossed out but still legible, informing the reader that the drawing is of the frame above the central door as shown in Folio 2 (that is, frame ‘B.C.’), and the second that replaced it explaining that this drawing is no longer of use since the frame has been changed in the way now shown on Folio 11 (Fig. 15).Footnote ³⁰ Folio 11 does indeed show a revised version of frame ‘B.C.’, which is closer to the one on the actual building, indicating that it must be the updated drawing that Alessi was referring to (Figs 10 and 18).

Fig. 18. Milan, S. Maria presso S. Celso: detail of exterior façade

The drawings of the details of the exterior façade are followed by drawings of the individual features that make up the interior façade, which are similarly linked to the master drawing in Folio 3 again through an alphanumerical system (Fig. 9). However there are far fewer drawings for the interior façade than there are for the exterior; just twenty-one in comparison to the sixty-one drawings that survive for the exterior. Those drawings that are included illustrate elements from the inner façade's first and second levels, but there are none for its third level.Footnote ³¹ Alessi must have produced drawings illustrating the remaining parts of the inner façade, but what has happened to them is hard to say. They may have been destroyed or bound in a separate book that has gone missing, but they certainly were not part of Ferrari's collection. The Ambrosiana folder also contains sets of drawings for the choir stalls and choir wall, which follow the same system of a master drawing followed by individual architectural features again identified alphanumerically. The last set of drawings in the collection is for the Eucharistic tabernacle, and these drawings are rather different to those we have seen previously. Rather than showing a master scheme with an associated set of drawings of details, Alessi instead produced five drawings of the tabernacle's different elevations, both interior and exterior, as well as two floor plans and a floor plan of the choir in which the tabernacle was to be situated (Figs 2 and 19).

Fig. 19. Galeazzo Alessi, rear elevation of the Eucharistic tabernacle for S. Maria presso S. Celso (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S. 149 Sup. B, fol. 111; with permission)

The drawings in the Libro dei Misteri are arranged in a similarly logical manner. The book covers each of the chapels that were to line Alessi's new pilgrimage route around the hilltop above Varallo, both the new chapels designed by Alessi himself and the pre-existing structures relating to previous incarnations of the site. Each chapel is illustrated in turn, following the order in which they were to be encountered on the Sacro Monte, taking the reader through Alessi's new monumental entrance to his chapel of Adam and Eve, and then past the series of chapels that snake up the hillside relating to the early life of Christ, and thereafter proceeding through the Porta Aurea to the summit of the Monte itself with its chapels devoted to the Passion of Christ, and to a third and final area dotted with chapels concerning the judgement of man – the Final Judgement, Purgatory and Hell.Footnote ³² Each chapel is represented by its own set of drawings, which always include a floor plan, exterior elevation, interior elevation, and view of the tableau vivant scene that depicts the episode after which the chapel is named.Footnote ³³ Other folios can show details such as the entrance, the vitrine housing the sculpted scene, or the lantern capping the chapel, as well as profiles of mouldings for doorframes and entablatures, drawn almost at full size. These drawings were often associated with one another through an alphanumerical system, just like that used at S. Maria presso S. Celso.

At the start of each group of drawings there is, on the left-hand page, a paragraph in Alessi's distinctive hand, describing the mystery or subject depicted in a chapel, and imparting pertinent information about the chapel's form and the materials to be used. For example:

The description is then followed on the opposite page by the floor plan, normally accompanied by a scale bar, drawn in red ink and measured in Milanese braccia, together with the title of the chapel's mystery or subject, likewise written in red ink. Further labels appear on the drawings, in the same brown ink as the drawings themselves, which identify their subjects, for example ‘the profile of the cornice of the previous temple’, and give some limited technical information such as ‘the ornaments must always match the moulding [of the cornice] in the most correct way’.Footnote ³⁵ A comparison between the red- and brown-ink handwriting reveals that it is in the same hand and that there is, therefore, no reason to doubt, as Stefani Perrone did, Alessi's authorship of some of the Libro drawings.Footnote ³⁶ Each page is divided by two ruled lines in red ink, one running vertically down the middle of the page, and the other crossing it horizontally towards the bottom.

Despite her doubts over Alessi's authorship of every drawing in the Libro, Stefani Perrone still recognised that there are numerous similarities between the Varallo drawings and those Alessi produced for S. Maria presso S. Celso.Footnote ³⁷ Apart from the close analogies in handwriting and drawing style, outlined above, she drew attention to the close resemblance of two particular folios as evidence of Alessi's involvement in both projects. These are Folio 111 in the Ambrosiana folder, which shows his tabernacle for S. Maria presso S. Celso, and Folio 170 in the Libro, which depicts the exterior of the Temple of the Oration (Figs 19 and 20). As she recognised, one design is clearly derived from the other and, although there are some differences between them, for example in the arrangement of openings and in the pediment which in the tabernacle drawing rises above and behind the half dome, they are compositionally almost identical in most other respects. Admittedly the method of indicating shadow is different, in that hatching is used for the Temple of the Oration and ink wash is employed for the tabernacle, but this is not a reason to doubt Alessi's authorship of either because, as was discussed above, Alessi regularly used both techniques for shadows; but the fact that the shadow falls in the same place in both drawings, and with the same levels of light and shade, indicates that they are the work of the same person. A comparison of the way in which the Corinthian capitals have been drawn, with their distinctive narrow volutes and curly-edged acanthus leaves, further indicates Alessi's authorship of both.

Fig. 20. Galeazzo Alessi, exterior elevation of the Temple of the Oration (Varallo, Biblioteca Civica, Libro dei Misteri, fol. 170; with permission)

An interesting difference between the two sets of drawings, however, is that Alessi placed a greater emphasis in the Sacro Monte drawings on the combination of plan and elevational drawings – façades and sections – in order, evidently, to capture the essential characteristics of the various chapels. This practice is different for the S. Maria presso S. Celso drawings, which include only one floor plan of the church on Folio 1 at the front of the folder. However, this reflects the fact that Alessi was only completing the Milanese church and was not responsible for the entire building and so did not need to produce many plans. Earlier architects had of course made use of plans, elevations and section drawings, a practice seen in the early sixteenth-century Codex Melon (also known as the Menicantonio Sketchbook held in The Morgan Library and Museum, New York), and represented too in the drawings by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in the Uffizi, which attest to his frequent use of all three drawing types.Footnote ³⁸ What is different about the Sacro Monte drawings, however, is Alessi's consistent and repeated use of all three types, each given its own dedicated page, for every single new chapel he designed for the site.Footnote ³⁹ This new reliance upon the plan, elevation and section to convey the essentials of a design, also seen in Andrea Palladio's Quattro libri dell’ architettura, published in 1570 and so some five years after Alessi started work on the Sacro Monte, thus heralds a more general change in practice during the second half of the sixteenth century.

In creating these two books of drawings, Alessi intended to illustrate every aspect of his two schemes, but the system he adopted for S. Maria presso S. Celso, with its master drawings and drawings of all the individual architectural elements and the details, also appears to have resulted from his experience of concurrently constructing S. Maria Assunta di Carignano in Genoa. Alessi had begun work on this church in 1549, but eight years later, before the project had even risen above the level of the floor, he had been summoned to Milan to design the Palazzo Marino there. Once in Milan, he found himself in high demand, working on a range of projects including the church of S. Maria presso S. Celso and the Sacro Monte di Varallo, just over 100 km northwest the city, as well as other Milanese schemes such as the church of S. Barnaba. Despite frequent entreaties from his Sauli patrons to return to Genoa so as to supervise the completion of their church, Alessi stayed in Milan, returning only sporadically to Genoa to oversee the work.Footnote ⁴⁰ Thus, he was markedly absent from the building site of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano.

It is clear from various letters that Alessi had not left behind a coherent collection of drawings depicting every aspect of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano, like those he would later produce for S. Maria presso S. Celso and the Sacro Monte. By 1567, while he was in Milan, construction at S. Maria Assunta di Carignano had reached its most difficult and complicated stage: the raising of the main central dome. Letters written during this time between Alessi, his Sauli patrons and the master builder, Angelo Doggio, reveal a range of problems being encountered in trying to erect the dome without the direct supervision of the architect. In 1567, Andrea Rebecco, the Sauli's notary, wrote a list of desiderata and questions concerning this matter which, on behalf of Doggio, were needed to be put to Alessi.Footnote ⁴¹ These included a request to have a model with measurements for the entablature of the drum, and inquiries about the measurements of the width of the drum's interior and exterior, and about how much light the windows should let into the dome. It appears, therefore, that Doggio was missing fundamental information, such as a comprehensive corpus of drawings detailing every aspect of the church's construction, and that this was precluding him from going ahead with the work; and that Alessi had, therefore, to provide additional information, in the form of written instructions, drawings and perhaps a model, so that the work could recommence.

In addition to Rebecco's list, there are two drawings in the Sauli archive that seem to address some of the queries that Doggio raised.Footnote ⁴² One of these depicts a section of the drum and shows the entablature that was being built at the time, which according to Alessi's note on the drawing, was to be 3 palmi high so as to be level with the top of the roof (Fig. 21). This drawing may, therefore, have been supplemented by the requested model of the entablature, which would have shown its precise form. Alessi also labelled the entablature with a cross, which presumably refers to an additional drawing (now lost) showing the entablature in greater detail, rather in the manner of the alphanumerical system he would use for S. Maria presso S. Celso and the Sacro Monte. The second drawing shows the different skins of the drum (Fig. 22) and its articulation, which on the inside of the drum is in the form of paired pilasters alternating with rectangular windows and, on the outside is in the form of a series of Serliana openings. In respect to both the interior and exterior articulation of the drum, he provided measurements for the width of the windows or openings and, on the verso of the sheet, he also gave measurements for the width of the skins of the drum specifying 4 palmi for each and indicating how the openings on the interior and exterior were to be aligned. These measurements, together with the instructions concerning the alignment of the windows, would seem, therefore, to answer Doggio's questions about the width of the interior and exterior walls of the drum and about the amount of light to enter the dome through the interior windows and exterior arches. This system, however, of sending supplementary drawings to enable the builders to continue construction in Alessi's absence was not foolproof, as mistakes could be made in interpreting his drawings. For example, on 25 August 1567 Alessi wrote to Doggio from Perugia about a misunderstanding of the measurements he had given in a drawing for the main dome.Footnote ⁴³ It seems from this that Doggio had taken a crucial measurement from in front of the drum's exterior arches rather than from behind them, and, as a consequence, had found it to be longer than the twelve palmi given by Alessi on the original drawing.

Fig. 21. Galeazzo Alessi, drawing of the drum of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano in Genoa (Genoa, Archivio Durazzo-Giustiniani; with permission)

Fig. 22. Galeazzo Alessi, drawing of the skins of the drum of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano in Genoa (Genoa, Archivio Durazzo-Giustinian; with permission)

Alessi certainly produced far more drawings for S. Maria di Carignano than the few that happen to survive today, but, as the letters reveal, he had not yet developed, at this stage in his career, his eventual system of producing comprehensive books of drawings to illustrate every element of a building, like those surviving for S. Maria presso S. Celso or the Sacro Monte.Footnote ⁴⁴ It may well be the case, therefore, that having learned the hard way at S. Maria Assunta di Carignano, he devised his comprehensive system, specifically so that he could be absent from site. These books of drawings thus gave Alessi the capability of working simultaneously on more than one project, and also to take on work in geographically remote locations, during what was his most prolific period as an architect. It was Wolfgang Lotz who in 1975 first termed the phrase ‘remote control’ to describe Alessi's ability to control the work proceeding at S. Maria Assunta through the correspondence sent between him and his patrons and master builders.Footnote ⁴⁵ This idea was then taken up by Paolo Belardi, who concluded that this practice was something that Alessi had learned from Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, under whose direction Alessi had worked in the early 1540s at the Rocca Paolina, Perugia, and that Sangallo had learned from Raphael at St Peter's. It was a system that relied on highly skilled assistants who could interpret the drawings and proceed with construction in the architect's absence, but which also allowed the architects to work on several projects at the same time.Footnote ⁴⁶

Whilst we know that Alessi used his drawings to control his projects from a distance, nothing has been established previously on how exactly his books of drawings were actually used in practice. The pristine condition of both sets points to the fact that they cannot have been used on site for construction purposes, for if that were the case they would show tell-tell signs of wear and tear or not survive at all. Yet their scale bars, and the annotations that give technical information about measurements and choices of materials, suggest that they would have been useful during construction. How then were these drawings used?

A clue can be found in the prologue to the Libro dei Misteri where Alessi outlines some of his reasons for producing the volume:

Alessi, therefore, had clearly recognised the magnitude of the task in hand, which involved the construction or adaptation of some forty-three chapels, and he understood that his project would be constructed by many different people over many years. With his drawings and instructions for all the chapels, however, he also realised that future builders could follow his designs and that his original concept would remain intact. It seems, moreover, that he was adopting a similar strategy for his work at S. Maria presso S. Celso, in that book of the drawings for it was produced to help those involved in the construction of the sanctuary not only during his lifetime but also after it. Indeed, it seems that Alessi had every reason to be worried about what would happen to his projects after his death, since both underwent major changes in the years after this occurred in 1572. As regards S. Maria presso S. Celso, a comparison between the upper sections of the extant façade and Alessi's project as illustrated by him in Folio 2 of the Ambrosiana folder reveals numerous departures, particularly in the area of the main pediment, that were all effected by his successor Martino Bassi. The story was even worse for the Sacro Monte where a whole series of changes were brought in under the direction of Carlo Bescapè.

We know that the Libro dei Misteri was commissioned from Alessi directly by Giacomo d'Adda, who was one of the fabbricieri, the committee of laymen elected by the citizens of Varallo to oversee the construction of the Sacro Monte.Footnote ⁴⁸ This suggests that Alessi's patrons were also well aware that he would never be personally able to oversee the realisation of his vast project to redevelop the pilgrimage site, and that they asked him to produce a book to illustrate every aspect of his project so that it could still be completed. The fabbricieri, therefore, saw Alessi's role as an architect as that of conceiving a new plan for the Sacro Monte and illustrating that plan through his drawings. They thus valued his expertise as an inventor and draughtsman over his ability to manage a building site and oversee construction, tasks that could be carried out by others.

As Stefani Perrone has pointed out, Alessi's drawings in the Libro were given official approval by Alessandro Caimo, a figure who was also one of the deputies involved in managing the construction of S. Maria presso S. Celso.Footnote ⁴⁹ It would, therefore, seem likely that the commission by Giacomo d'Adda of the Libro dei Misteri was prompted by the similar compendium of drawings produced by Alessi for the Milanese sanctuary, which Giacomo d'Adda knew of either directly, or via Alessandro Caimo. We also know, however, that Giacomo d'Adda stipulated in his will of 1572 that the Libro was to be kept, after his death, at the Scuola di Carità in Milan, which indicates that it was his personal property rather than in the general ownership of the Sacro Monte fabbricieri.Footnote ⁵⁰ The will also suggests that the Libro was highly valued by Giacomo d'Adda and that he probably kept hold of it himself rather than leaving it on site in Varallo for day-to-day use. This is not to say that the capomeastri or other members of the fabbricieri were never allowed to consult it, and it probably served as a clean-copy of reference drawings. This possibility is rather confirmed by the presence, in the State Archive of Varallo, of other drawings, some in the hand of Alessi and some in the hands of his followers, which, as Stefani Perrone demonstrated, are evidently derived from drawings in the Libro although they are not exact copies. Indeed, the drawings in the Libro show no pinpricks or other signs of having been copied. The State Archive drawings are of a rougher nature than those in the Libro and they were surely destined for use on site. Some are scaled-up versions of architectural elements such as the mouldings of cornices, which have been cut out in order to form templates, and others have additional annotations and calculations (Fig. 23).Footnote ⁵¹ Some of them are in Alessi's hand, as is evident in the, by now familiar, drawing and handwriting style, although others are clearly by later followers who were employed to put some of Alessi's designs for the chapels into action. In fact, the drawing in the State Archive of the Temple of Solomon follows that depicted in the Libro, but the annotation on it, which is not in Alessi's hand, reveals that it is by someone else, ‘following the drawing by Signor Galeazzo’ (secondo il dissegno dil Sr Galeazzo). This, therefore, suggests that a second group of working drawings was made for the actual construction of the chapels, some of which were done by Alessi before his departure from Milan, while others were the work of followers.

Fig. 23. Galeazzo Alessi, template for the pedestal moulding of the small columns belonging to the House of Pilate (Varallo, Archivio di Stato, Archivio d'Adda; with permission)

Having established that the Libro dei Misteri was produced for one of the Varallo patrons and was in all likelihood kept off-site and only consulted occasionally, it seems likely that the same may be true of the drawings in the Ambrosiana folder. We know that from 1564, at the start of his association with S. Maria presso S. Celso, payments were made for books for Alessi to draw in, and it seems likely that these books of drawings were presented to and kept by his patrons. In this case the patrons were a group of deputies who oversaw the running of the church and who, unlike the Varallo fabbricieri, were elected to the post for only a limited amount of time. If these drawings were indeed the property of the deputies, then they would have ensured that whenever new deputies were elected they could really understand what was going on in the construction and thus guarantee consistency. That these drawings were used as a reference tool by the deputies to keep track of construction is further supported by annotations on some of the folios, which inform the reader that, for example, niche B on Folio 17 is already under construction. We also know that Alessi was paid 150 gold scudi specifically for his drawings, suggesting that they were highly valued by the deputies and were considered separately from the actual building and the role he had in supervising its construction.

Like the folios of the Libro dei Misteri, the Ambrosiana drawings are very detailed, but do not show any signs of having been copied or used on site during construction. This means that in both cases another set of drawings must have been produced for use in construction, so that there would have been site drawings for S. Maria presso S. Celso similar to those that still survive for the Sacro Monte in the Varallo State Archive. This practice regarding the production and use of drawings is similar to that followed by Vignola and his team for the Palazzo Farnese at Piacenza, in that one group of drawings was sent to the patron Margherita of Austria in 1561 (which survive today in the Parma State Archive) while another, rougher, set of drawings seems to have been retained by the Vignola workshop (some of which can be found today in Royal Library at Windsor).Footnote ⁵²

One of the reasons why Alessi's authorship of all the drawings in the two collections has been questioned in the past is because it was considered impossible for a single architect to produce so many.Footnote ⁵³ The task was certainly enormous, particularly when it is remembered that in order to produce finished drawings, the architect would have first had to produce vast numbers of preparatory drawings, which, by and large, have not survived. Also to be considered is that Alessi was a very prolific architect who, at the same time as working on S. Maria presso S. Celso and the Sacro Monte di Varallo, was also involved with the church of S. Barnaba and Palazzo Marino in Milan, and was still overseeing the completion of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano in Genoa. As Francesco Bernardino Ferrari commented in relation to the Milanese drawings when he owned them: ‘it is too difficult that a man of that type, very busy, could have want for pure pleasure to turn his hand to doing many drawings which are finished with all their measurements and many observations’.Footnote ⁵⁴ So how could such a busy architect have produced such a number of drawings?

The answer seems to lie in the type of architect that Alessi was and in the changing role of the architect in this period. Although there is much that we do not know about Alessi's early education and how he came to be an architect, it is still clear that he did not follow the more typical route of serving an apprenticeship in a related field.Footnote ⁵⁵ Alessi had been born into a patrician family and it is possible that, after an education in the liberal arts, he received some sort of architectural training from the Perugian architect, painter and commentator on Vitruvius, Giovan Battista Caporali before 1536 when he moved to Rome.Footnote ⁵⁶ There are no documents that cast light on his activities there but, as Gaetano Miarelli Mariani noted in 1975, one only needs to look at Alessi's later architectural works to see the influence that Roman architecture had on him.Footnote ⁵⁷ In particular, he would seem to have gravitated towards the site of St Peter's and the figure of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, since, when he returned to Perugia in 1542 it was as an architect, assisting in the construction of the Rocca Paolina under Sangallo's direction. Unlike many of his contemporaries then, Alessi did not have a background in painting or sculpture, and nor was he like Antonio da Sangallo or Palladio in having a practical grounding in building.

As a result of this unconventional education in architecture, it may well be that Alessi did not have much of a practical knowledge of construction and engineering. He was, however, not so unusual in this regard since, as James Ackerman has noted, many sixteenth-century architects had trained in one of the sister arts and sometimes also lacked an understanding of structural matters, which they generally left to the masons and carpenters who worked under their supervision.Footnote ⁵⁸ Such an arrangement certainly seems to have been in place on the building sites of Alessi's projects, as is attested to by a letter relating to the construction of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano, written by Alessi in Milan to his Sauli patrons in Genoa.Footnote ⁵⁹ In this letter, Alessi informed his patrons that the scaffolding for the choir vault was not to be erected in the ‘normal’ way, but would be done ‘in a new way which I have described in detail to master Bernardino’, that is Bernardo Cantone who was overseeing the work while Alessi was in Milan, ‘and of which I have included a sketch’ (Fig. 24). Alessi then added that ‘because this form [of vaulting] is probably not used any more in Genoa it might seem difficult, but he has informed master Bernardo Spacio, who affirms he has seen it [the scaffolding] elsewhere and who has offered his help if you need it’. The sketch which Alessi included with the letter, however, is just that, a sketch to indicate what the scaffolding should look like but not how to erect it. This lack of detail, therefore, in combination with Alessi's recommendation that if they have any problems they should ask Bernardo Spacio, would appear to indicate that Alessi himself did not have the necessary practical understanding of the scaffolding in order to explain how to erect it. It would thus seem that while Alessi was very capable of drawing the scaffolding, which he had probably studied first-hand at St Peter's, he still needed to rely upon others to supply the practical know-how.

Fig. 24. Galeazzo Alessi, drawing of two types of scaffolding for S. Maria Assunta di Carignano in Genoa (Genoa, Archivio Durazzo-Giustiniani; with permission)

This lack of practical knowledge goes hand-in-hand with the fact that many of Alessi's buildings were executed in his absence. Scotti has recently established that, in Genoa, Alessi had a trusted group of assistants who all worked on his projects for S. Maria Assunta di Carignano, the Villa Giustiniani, the Porta del Molo and the Strada Nuova, and it seems likely, therefore, that he had a similar group working for him in Milan, and so was not much involved in the actual construction of his buildings.Footnote ⁶⁰ If this is so, as I believe it is, then why could he not have been responsible for producing the hundreds of drawings required to construct his buildings in his absence? This suggests that Alessi was spearheading a new emphasis on the production of drawings as a means of transmitting his ideas to the teams of master masons, stone cutters and carpenters involved in his projects, an emphasis in keeping with the developing role of the architect more generally in sixteenth-century Italy, in relying on drawings to communicate his ideas to those responsible for the actual construction rather than being constantly present at the stone yard or building site.Footnote ⁶¹

The value placed on drawing also accords with the elevation of architecture as a liberal art and the increasing professionalisation of the architect. Previous artist-architects, most notably Raphael and Michelangelo, were valued for their ability to conceive a work of architecture, rather than their ability actually to construct it. The act of conceiving an idea, invenzione, and transmitting it through drawing, disegno, had been at the foundation of attempts to elevate architecture, like painting and sculpture, to the level of a liberal art, and to separate it from the manual, mechanical, work of the carpenter or stonemason. In this regard, therefore, Alessi's role in coming up with the concept for a project that was then transmitted through his hundreds of architectural drawings, and in taking a hands-off approach to the project's actual realisation, is not only in keeping with the developing professionalisation of the architect, but actually at the forefront of such a change. This new way of working would have been especially encouraged, moreover, by the fact that Alessi was born into a patrician family and received a liberal education before embarking on an architectural career, since this places him in the realm of the gentleman architect. In fact, his status as a gentleman is frequently acknowledged in documents that refer to him not as mastro but as messer or signore.Footnote ⁶² Being an educated figure of this status, therefore, he was inclined to view his profession very differently from his architect predecessors, and to operate in a way that was far removed from the dust and physical labour of the construction site, endured by the maestri who executed his designs. It was thus as this new kind of architect that Alessi was commissioned to conceive his projects for S. Maria presso S. Celso and the Varallo Sacro Monte, and to produce multitudes of drawing for them so that they could be realised by skilled groups of craftsmen. It was also as this new kind of architect that Alessi paved the way for others to follow his example and for the profession of architect to be changed irrevocably.