On the Threshold of History: the Restoration of the Chapter Sacristy

A dialogue among stone, light and memory

Monsignor Gianantonio Borgonovo, Archpriest of the Duomo and Director of the Cultural and Conservation Area of the Veneranda Fabbrica, commented: “The Chapter Sacristy, the beating heart of our Cathedral’s liturgical life, now reveals itself once again in its rediscovered magnificence. Together with the Northern Sacristy, this primitive core of the Cathedral is a book of stone and color waiting to be reread. Works such as the Portal by Hans von Fernach, now shining once again with its unexpected polychromies and gilding, and the Laver by Giovannino de’ Grassi, revived in its delicate painted decoration, are not mere marbles or frescoes; they are living pages offering new levels of interpretation — theological, political, philosophical — and reconnecting us deeply to the spiritual and cultural legacy of those who once worked here. Through this work, Veneranda Fabbrica acts as a guardian not only of form, but of meaning, giving back to Milan and to the Ambrosian liturgy a place where the history of art is intimately fused with the history of salvation.”

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