Description of the attraction
The Cathedral of Sant Ambrogio is the main Roman Catholic church in the small town of Vigevano in the province of Pavia in Lombardy. It is located in Piazza Ducale and is the seat of the local bishop. The current building of the cathedral dates from the 16th century, and its western façade was completed in the 1670s.
It is known that earlier on the site of the cathedral there was another building, the first mention of which dates back to 963. And in 1532, by order of Duke Francesco II Sforza, the construction of a new church dedicated to St. Ambrose began. The author of the project was the architect Antonio da Lonate. Construction work took a long time, and the cathedral was completed and consecrated only in 1612.
At the end of the 17th century, the Spanish Cardinal Juan Caramuel and Lobkowitz were hired to reconstruct the western facade of the cathedral, who successfully "fitted" the old building into the architectural appearance of Piazza Ducale. Inside, the cathedral is built in the form of a Latin cross with a central nave and two side chapels. The interior is decorated with works by Macrino d'Alba and Bernardino Ferrari, as well as a polyptych in the tempera technique of the Leonardo da Vinci school.
Today in the cathedral of Sant Ambrogio there is a small museum "Tesoro del Duomo Vigevano", which displays over a hundred exhibits donated by Francesco II Sforza in 1534, as well as other artifacts. The collection of the museum contains several Dutch tapestries of the 16th century, made in the late Gothic style, an ivory patroness, a silver ark of the Lombard jewelry school, various missals (church books), codices and manuscripts of the late 15th century, cups, glasses, tabernacles etc. The 16th century gold-embroidered tapestry, which was used in 1805 during the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte in Monza, deserves special attention.
