Per una ricostruzione delle cappelle laterali delle Grazie tra Quattro e Cinquecento

This essay is focused on the reconstruction of the phases of erection and decoration of the side-chapels in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan; it is based on a reconsideration of the Libellus sepulchrorum (a manuscript written betwe- en 1526 and 1539 that contains a list of the tombs placed in the building), on the published archival documents, and on a new research through the Milan’s State Archive funds. The study starts by examining the first chapels, which were founded at the end of the construction of the church, and pursues the analysis of those erected untill the beginning of the 16th century; special attention was given to the Virgin’s chapel. The purpose is to enucleate the surviving evidences of the side-chapels’ decoration and provide guidelines for the interpretation of the buryals’ system. It emerges that, alongside the building project promoted by Ludovico il Moro, the Lombard nobility played a significant role in creating the Renaissance phases of the church, both in the choice of particular types of tombs commissioned to the workshops of the most important Milanese Renaissance sculptors (Benedetto Briosco, Tommaso Cazzaniga, Bambaia), and in the em- ployment of painters influenced by the latest figurative culture, such as Giovanni Donato Montorfano, a choice that sometimes breaks with the original project plan of the building. In addition, the text explores also the graves of some artists buried in Santa Maria delle Grazie, such as Bernard Zenale, whose tomb was in the chapel of San Martino.