L'astrazione dell'ordine, Galeazzo Alessi tra Roma, Milano e Varallo

Around 1565, while working in Milan for Palazzo Marino and for the church of Santa Maria presso San Celso, the Late Renaissance architect Galeazzo Alessi designed a renovation plan for the Sacro Monte of Varallo Sesia, outlined in a 320-sheet manuscript volume known as Libro dei Misteri (1565-1572). The ambitious project foresaw the construction of twenty-four new chapels, a piazza with porticoes, and two monumental gates, together with the restoration of twelve existing buildings. Instead of using the ornamental richness of the ongoing Milanese projects, in Varallo Alessi opted for a concise and abstract architectural language. Alessi developed a particular use of the architectural orders, abstracting some classical elements in a new experimental synthesis. Galeazzo Alessi’s approach to orders was common to other architects of his times and it was rooted in his early studies on Vitruvius, on the ancient Roman monuments and on the architectural examples of the early Sixteenth Century, that he saw during his stay in Rome between 1536 and 1542.