Il sepolcreto dell'abbazia di Chiaravalle Milanese e le sue pitture. Alcune considerazioni

The ancient cemetery of Chiaravalle Milanese’s Abbey preserves some portions of mural paintings dating between the second half of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th centuries. Thanks to their ornamental details these frescoes represent an important example for the analysis of Milanese painting before Giotto’s arrival. Moreover, they permit to investigate the funerary art of that period in Milan. The paper focuses on the burials of arcosolium type in this Cistercian cemetery. By crossing different historical sources and documents, the research describes the sepulcra of some important Milanese families, like the Della Torre, in order to understand the spiritual relations between them and the Cistercians. Respect to this point, it has been possible to understand that what people see today in Chiaravalle’s cemetery represents not only the prestige that the Community had reached in spiritual, political and economical affairs, but also the most monumental phase – and probably the last one - of this burial practice in Chiaravalle before the definitive affirmation of the Mendicant churches as privileged burial places in Milan.