Carlo Borromeo, Pellegrino Tibaldi e la costruzione del coro dei canonici nel Duomo di Milano

This paper retraces the presbyterial transformations of Milan Cathedral during Carlo Borromeo’s episcopate (1564-1584), suggesting new observations on their conception. Following copious documentation (mainly in the archive of Veneranda Fabbrica), the author then traces the building history of the wooden choir, which hosts a vast cycle of carved scenes of the patron Ambrose’s life as well as figures of saint bishops, martyrs and relics, most of which were drawn by Pellegrino Tibaldi. This documentation allows to know new information about carvers, such as Riccardo Taurino’s year of birth, and to attribute to Tibaldi a capital unifying the three architectural orders. Letters consent to better know the long research for subjects to be carved in the choir (traditionally entirely attributed to Carlo Bascapè, but concerning Pietro Galesini and the Jesuits Francesco Adorno and Manuel de Sá) and prove a strict relationship with the Tabula Archiepiscoporum, the newly edited Breviary and Liber Notitiae Sanctorum Mediolani. The figurative cycle of the wooden choir – whose centrality in Carlo Borromeo’s cultural politics emerges in ephemeral decorations for the translation of Saint Simpliciano in 1582 – provides the occasion for new iconographic observations about histories of saint Ambrose, figures of martyrs and grotesque mascarons under the upper trabeation of stalls.