Dome

Frontal view of a cloister wall; [In 1930 the main campus of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore moved into the old monastery of Sant'Ambrogio.] In 1497 Cardinal Ascanio Sforza commissioned Bramante to design a new monastic complex at S Ambrogio (executed mostly during the later 16th century). It is organized around a neighbouring pair of suitably restrained courtyards, descriptively known as the Doric and Ionic Cloisters. These are almost identical, with widely spaced columns carrying arches via entablature blocks and with tapering square-sectioned pillars at the angles, a type of support known to Francesco di Giorgio as a colonna piramidale. The corner pillars have Doric capitals even in the Ionic Cloister: the same combination also occurs in Giuliano da Sangallo's atrium (1491) at S Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi in Florence. The upper storeys in both cloisters have blind arches and a doubled rhythm of much shorter pilasters. Although typical of Lombard courtyard design, this arrangement closely resembles a drawing by Giuliano da Sangallo of the ruined Portico of Pompey in Rome and may well reflect an outlook of renewed antiquarianism (Rome, Vatican, Bib. Apostolica, MS lat. 4424). Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.groveart.com/ (accessed 2/2/2008)