JUSTICE FOR LOMBARDY

OF all the proud city-states of Italy, none was more arrogant or belligerent than Milan, the rich capital of Lombardy. The names of its militant warlords, the Visconti and the Sforza, sent chills down the spine of Italy. But in art, Milan has always been looked down upon as a poor cousin by such sophisticated citadels as Venice and Florence. Even today most tourists take a look at the towered Duomo (second largest cathedral in Italy), seek out the faded mural remains of The Last Supper (painted by an imported Florentine, Leonardo da Vinci) at Santa Maria delle Grazie, and hurry on to Siena, Bologna or Rome.

Now the Milanese have set out to cure their sense of inferiority in matters of art. Last week they had on display the most impressive array of Lombard art ever assembled. The exhibit, which took four years to gather, includes frescoes lifted bodily from the walls of churches, oils on loan from all over Europe and the U.S., marble sculptures lowered from the peaks of the Duomo for their first close-up inspection in more than 400 years. An imposing array of 501 objects spread out over 22 rooms of Milan's solemn Palazzo Reale, viewed by more than a thousand visitors a day, the show hit its mark. Wrote Cornere di Sicilia: "A vindication of Lombard artistic values . . . above all else, an act of justice."

Among the most popular paintings in the show are the works of two Milanese artists who reached their peak at the beginning of the 16th century (see color page), Bernardino Butinone (active 1454-1507) and Ambrogio Fossano, known as "Il Borgognone" (circa 1450-1523). Butinone tried to combine the perspective of Florence with the mastery of light developed by the artists of Bruges. His The Last Judgment almost overcrowds the canvas with drama: the archangel is dividing the damned from the saved (including a Pope) in the foreground, while Christ sits on high in judgment, flanked by the Apostles and the Virgin Mary on one side and John the Baptist on the other. Il Borgognone, in St. Benedict's Miracle of the Sieve, shows his central figure moving through the pious story then popular: at prayer (left), displaying the flour sieve he had miraculously mended (center), and finally leaving in displeasure and disappearing into the distance (right) after the maids prattled about his power.

With Lombardy's best on display, a whole overlooked chapter of Italian art was reinserted into history. Milan could not muster the roll of masters that Venice and Florence boast, but it had its own great and distinctive charm. Summed up one Milanese critic: "It is not superb art, but it is never empty."

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