A completely new insight into Lombard Mannerism. The creativity of an artistic 'forge' among the most interesting in Northern Italy.
[Profane Milan at the Time of the Borromeo Family / 1580-1620] Alessandro Morandotti reconstructs in this volume the remarkable history of the nymphaeum at Lainate, which from 1587 on saw many Lombard Mannerist artists, such as Bernardino Luini, Camillo Procaccini and il Boccaccino, working with Giovan Paolo Lomazzo and the owner Pirro Visconti Borromeo. With its water games, grottoes decorated with shells and semi-precious stones, rooms with pebble mosaic, Grotesque painting, sculptural furnishings and art collections, the nymphaeum is an ‘unofficial’ academy of art. Using the Lainate project as his departure point, the author develops a completely new theory on artistic production for a private patron as opposed to religious commissions in Milan during the time of Federico Borromeo. In this volume, the illustrated essay is interspersed with a collection of images depicting the creativity of an artistic ‘forge’ among the most interesting in Northern Italy.