The Virgin of the Rocks of the Borghetto

The Virgin of the Rocks of the Borghetto and St. Michael on the Dosso

Stepping through the front door of Via Lanzone 53, a few steps from Piazza Sant’Ambrogio, quiet falls in the central courtyard of the convent belonging to the Congregation of the Ursulines of St. Charles: the building, of Bramante’s design, is now home to an important city school and its appearance appears partially modernized, though not without charm. It was precisely in this ancient monastic place in Milan that the Tuscan poet Petrarch is said to have stayed snel 1353, a guest of Bishop Giovanni Visconti…
From a corner of the courtyard one can access the small convent church, San Michele sul Dosso, perhaps little known to the Milanese themselves! The little church, clearly visible from the square in front of the basilica of Sant’Ambrogio and flanked by the pusterla of the same name, owes its name precisely to its proximity to the “dosso,” the embankment once adhered to the city’s first circle of walls.
Here, for some years now, the Borghetto’s Virgin of the Rocks has been kept, fascinating and enigmatic just like Leonardo‘s originals, the one in the Louvre and the one in London’s National Gallery. The work hides quite a few mysteries: an extraordinarily beautiful copy, faithfully inspired by Leonardo’s original exhibited in the Louvre, it has undergone careful restoration and today bears the hypothetical attribution to Francesco Melzi, Leonardo’s favorite pupil and his universal heir at the time of his death in France in 1519.

Leonardo’s Milan

The Virgin of the Rocks of Borghetto is so called because it was previously located in the oratory of Santa Maria Assunta in the “viuzza del Borghetto,” in Porta Venezia: as chance would have it, the recent move to Via Lanzone brought it a stone’s throw from the place for which Leonardo da Vinci painted the Virgin of the Rocks, namely the church of San Francesco Grande. But why was Leonardo’s famous masterpiece made in two versions that were similar to each other but not exactly identical? And why has the church of San Francesco Grande disappeared today? The guided tour, starting with the story of the Virgin of the Borghetto, will take us on a discovery of Leonardo’s Milan, grasping the transformations that took place in the city – from the 15th century to the present day – right around San Michele sul Dosso and Sant’Ambrogio.