In Milan there is a Madonna with horns

Milan is a city that guards fascinating secrets, behind the austere façades of its churches and in the veiled details of its works of art. Among these mysteries, one of the most unique is hidden in the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio and is the so-called Madonna with horns. A curious name for a fresco of the Virgin Mary, which challenges iconographic conventions and fires the imagination of visitors. It’s an enigma that combines history, legend and art, raising a question in anyone who stops to look at it: is it a simple coincidence or an occult symbol? Let’s delve into the heart of this enigmatic Milan, where even sacred paintings hold unexpected surprises.

The Portinari Chapel

Before focussing on the unusual fresco of the Madonna with horns, it is worth saying a few words about the place where it is housed, the splendid Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio, which stands along one of the most important streets in the city of Milan, in the Ticinese area. Inside this historic building, around the middle of the 15th century, when the rule of the duchy passed from the Visconti to the Sforza family, a young Florentine banker named Pigello Portinari commissioned the construction of the Portinari Chapel, as his future burial place. The chapel houses some of the finest and most miraculously preserved masterpieces of the Lombard Renaissance, including paintings depicting the Marian cult.

The Madonna with horns

The south wall of the Portinari Chapel is adorned with a very unusual fresco, depicting a Madonna with horns. The work is by Vincenzo Foppa and is actually entitled ‘The Miracle of the False Madonna’. More than a blasphemous painting, the fresco illustrates a legend linked to St Peter of Verona, the person to whom the entire Portinari Chapel is dedicated. Tradition has it that while celebrating Mass in Sant’Eustorgio, St Peter noticed the presence of the devil in an icon of Mary placed above the altar. The devil was cast out, together with a heretical magician portrayed on the right, holding a consecrated host between his fingers, but once the exorcism was over, the horns of Lucifer remained in the painting on the head of the Madonna and even on that of the Baby Jesus.

The power of anecdotal narration

The Church has always used the representation of sacred images to fulfil its educational role. Foppa, the artist of the ‘Madonna with Horns’, could have chosen to express the triumph of good over evil allegorically, or to extol the thaumaturgic virtues of the Saint in a more courtly and celebratory vein. Instead, he chose the anecdotal narrative handed down by folklore, to document with great effectiveness the aversion that existed at the time in that place for the cult of the Virgin.

Interesting facts

There is a second legend, less accredited than the first, according to which the fresco of the Madonna with horns was haunted by the spirit of Guglielmina la Boema, a woman who was considered to be on the road to sainthood in 13th century Milan, but who was declared a heretic after her death. Another unmissable gem: the figure in profile, behind the saint, is said to be Pigello Portinari, the person who commissioned the chapel. The Madonna with horns is a daring work, an example (still little known to the general public) of one of the many treasures of Milan, which absolutely deserves to be admired when visiting the ancient basilica of Sant’Eustorgio.

Article translated by Jasmina Towers

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Curiosities

Travel

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