Carmelite Chapel

A Neoclassical elevation with two Doric style columns connected by an architrave surmounted by a slightly projecting tympanum is placed above the altar dating from the second half of the nineteenth century.

Within the chapel alcove are two interesting works of art: at the bottom a fresco, “The Madonna and Child with Saints Rocco and Sebastian” from the second decade of the 16th century and attributed to one of the most outstanding of the so-called “Leonardo Style” painters, the Lombard, Bernardino Luini;

above it, the decidedly Baroque painting by the Lombard painter, Federico Bianchi, “Christ with Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross”, the two great Spanish Reformers of the Carmelite Order. This painting predates the large one of them found in the presbytery.

The niches alongside the altar contain the eighteenth century marble statues of two Carmelite Saints, Angelo to the left, and Alberto to the right, sculpted by an artisan workshop.

Three paintings by the Milanese painter, Filippo Abbiati, datable to the beginnings of the ‘700s, are located on the chapel’s side walls and represent the most mature expression of the artist, considered among the important painters of the late Lombard Baroque style. On the right-hand wall is his “Martyrdom of the Carmelites” commemorating the Carmelite martyrs slaughtered and beheaded by Muslims at the end of the 13th century, and above it, his “The Madonna with the Child and the Prophets Elijah and Elisha”, both of whom were protectors of the Carmelite order. To the left is his painting, “The Triumph of the Carmelites”, showing the Madonna and Child, seated on a cart driven by the Prophet Elijah, appearing amidst swirls of angels to the Carmelites, including Saint Simon Stock, the Prior General of the Carmelite order.

At the top of the left-hand wall, the painting by Giovanni Stefano Danedi, called il Montalto (1669), “Jesus Christ with Saint Andrea Corsini and Saint Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi”, is a mature work by this Baroque painter from Treviglio. In the foreground the Carmelite Saint, Mary Magdalene, is flanked by two cherubim, whereas the figure of Christ carrying the Cross with the Carmelite Saint, Andrea Corsini, Bishop of Fiesole, is placed in the background.