The Chapel of the Spaniards
The chapel, restructured in the first part of the 19th. century, features a remarkable Neo-Classical altar (1824) with an altarpiece, situated between two columns, by the Milanese painter, Gaetano Dardanone; he worked in the first half of 1700, on the Fabbrica del Duomo (Vestry Council of the Cathedral) of Milan as well.
The well-balanced and clearly Correggio-inspired altarpiece (1738) shows the Glory of Sts. Lucy, Agatha and Apollonia. It features the tormentor in the foreground with St. Lucy above, supported by an angel while a putto, flying near her, is placing a crown on her head and holding a palm and a spike with her eyes on it in the other hand. The upper part shows St. Agatha with a martyr’s palm and, above that, St. Apollonia, holding a pair of pincers with a tooth.
There is a painting by Pietro Maggi, a Late-Baroque period Milanese painter, disciple and collaborator of Filippo Abbiati, on the right; it dates to the second decade of 1700 and portrays St. Anne, teaching the Virgin Mary, watched by an angel whilst St. Joachim, in thoughtful pose, leaning against a column, contrasts sharply with the joyful putti in the foreground.
A painting by Camillo Procaccini can be seen on the left; it is an early portrait of St. Charles at Prayer by the Late-Mannerist painter from Aemilia and his first of St. Charles, painted in 1585, shortly after the latter’s death. The painter would continue to create many other portraits of the great Bishop of Milan.
