MILAN AND THE CENTRAL PLAN

the present. So they commissioned
churches as temples to their own
glory. The eastern rotunda of the
Annunziata was intended to be a
memorial in Florence to the Gon-
zaga, rulers of Mantua. At the same
time Francesco Sforza of Milan
seems to have thought of such a
temple. A record of what was in-
tended survives in a medal of about
1460 by the sculptor Sperandio* (fig.
46). It seems to represent a building
of perfectly symmetrical plan
though of a type not yet met with:
the Greek cross, that is the cross with
all arms of equal length. It was to
be covered with five domes, just
as Perigueux and St. Mark's in
Venice three or four hundred years
before. The design may be due to
that mysterious Florentine sculptor
and architect Antonio Filarete
(died about 1470), who worked
for Francesco Sforza from 1451 to
1465. His fame now rests mainly
on the Milan hospital, the Ospedale
Maggiore, which was begun in
1457, a vast enterprise not carried
on in elevation to his designs,
though in plan. The plan is remark-
able in that it appears the first of
those large symmetrical piles with
many inner courtyards—nine at
Milan—taken up in the i6th and
17th centuries for such royal
schemes as the Escorial, the
Tuileries and Whitehall.

But Filarete's ambitions were for
planning on a yet grander scale. He
wrote a treatise on architecture,

85

46. PROJECTED SFORZA CHANEL,

MILAN. PLAN RECONSTRUCTED FROM

SPERANDIO'S MEDAL, f. 14.60.

47. ANTONIO FILARETE: PROJECTED

CHAPEL FOR THE HOSPITAL, MILAN.

RECONSTRUCTED FROM THE ORIGINAL

DRAWING, C. 145 5.

48. ANTONIO FILARETE: CHURCH FOR
2AGALIA, RECONSTRUCTED FROM THE
ORIGINAL DRAWING, t. 1455-60.