This is undoubtedly the most striking of the four paintings, and the one in which the artist’s imagination has run most freely, adopting an almost infinite number of creative solutions. The element fire appears primarily in the enormous blaze that, as an untameable force of nature, is devouring the building on the mountain in the middle distance. But the artist has also worked on the theme of fire through the representation of an enormous workshop, where the workers (whom the Cardinal refers to as the mythical Cyclops) are at work producing an enormous number of objects: armours, glassware, pitchers, domestic implements, and tools for a crafts workshop. The power of fire is needed to produce this huge number of objects, no longer as an overwhelming, destructive force, but tamed by man and subjected to his will in the furnace which we see on the left-hand side. The painting is signed and dated 1608, and was the first of the four to be made.
Annual international conference of the Society of Friends of Port-Royal is held, October 13-14 2023, Sala delle Accademie E.R. Galbiati.
An exhibition that aims at reconstructing the "considerable collection of books” belonging to Don Ferrante, which Alessandro Manzoni describes in the Promessi Sposi (The Bethroted).
The combo ticket Duomo + Ambrosiana is available in a new version which includes also the Ascent on foot to the Duomo terraces and access to the San Sepolcro Crypt.
Every Saturday at 15.30 a guided tour of the masterpieces of the Pinacoteca, together with professional guides of our official partner AdArtem
On Sunday October 1 and Monday October 2, free admission for all grandparents with their grandchildren
