thout fantastic
efflorescence or imaginative complexity of multiplied parts; while
the Renaissance manner, as applied by Tommaso Rodari, has not yet
stiffened into the lifeless neo-Latinism of the later _cinquecento_:
it is still distinguished by delicate inventiveness, and beautiful
subordination of decorative detail to architectural effect. Under
these happy conditions we feel that the Gothic of the nave, with its
superior severity and sombreness, dilates into the lucid harmonies of
choir and transepts like a flower unfolding. In the one the mind is
tuned to inner meditation and religious awe; in the other the
worshipper passes into a temple of the clear explicit faith--as an
initiated neophyte might be received into the meaning of the
mysteries.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire the district of Como seems
to have maintained more vividly than the rest of Northern Italy some
memory of classic art. _Magistri Comacini_ is a title frequently
inscribed upon deeds and charters of the earlier middle ages, as
synonymous with sculptors and architects. This fact may help to
account for the purity and beauty of the Duomo. It is the work of a
race in which the tradition of delicate artistic invention had
never been wholly interrupted. To Tommaso Rodari and his brothers,
Bernardino and Jacopo, the world owes this sympathetic fusion of the
Gothic and the Bramantesque styles; and theirs too is the sculpture
with which the Duomo is so richly decorated. They were natives of
Maroggia, a village near Mendrisio, beneath the crests of Monte
Generoso, close to Campione, which sent so many able craftsmen out
into the world between the years 1300 and 1500. Indeed the name of
Campionesi would probably have been given to the Rodari, had they left
their native province for service in Eastern Lombardy. The body of the
Duomo had been finished when Tommaso Rodari was appointed master of
the fabric in 1487. To complete the work by the addition of a tribune
was his duty. He prepared a wooden model and exposed it, after the
fashion of those times, for criticism in his _bottega_; and
the usual difference of opinion arose among the citizens of Como
concerning its merits. Cristoforo Solaro, surnamed Il Gobbo, was
called in to advise. It may be remembered that when Michelangelo first
placed his Pieta in S. Peter's, rumour gave it to this celebrated
Lombard sculptor, and the Florentine was constrained to set his own
signature upon the marble. The