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Hall of Justice, Rocca di Angera

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Hall of Justice, Rocca di Angera

Highlight • Historical Site

Hall of Justice, Rocca di Angera

Name: Hall of Justice, Rocca di Angera
Rating: 2

Recommended by 7 hikers

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Location: Angera, Varese, Lombardy, Italy

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2. Rocca di Angera (Borromeo Fortress of Angera) – Angera Lakeside Promenade loop from Ranco

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3. Angera Lakeside Promenade – Rocca Borromeo di Angera loop from Arona

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Horst

April 18, 2025

Ottone Visconti, elected archbishop of Milan by Pope Urban IV in 1262, but not by the Major Chapter of the cathedral, was not able to take possession of his seat until 1277, after the victory obtained in Desio over the enemies of the Tower. In 1280, as the owner of Angera – assigned to the Milanese Church since 1162 – he had a Hall of Justice built in the Rocca, where legal and economic matters were administered.

With a masterly coup, his nephew and Lord of Milan Matteo Visconti had the archiepiscopal archives (kept in the monastery of S. Radegonda) burned, with the papers regarding the possession of Angera by the Milanese Church, and claimed the inheritance of the place as a personal domain of the Viscontis, by virtue of a legendary descent of their lineage from Angleria.

Between 1314 and 1316, Matteo commissioned a local fresco painter, no better known than the Maestro di Angera, to decorate the Hall of Justice with episodes of the victory of Desio and the entry of Ottone Visconti into Milan, taken from an apologetic book written by Stefanardo da Vimercate. Above the stories is the Zodiac, now only partially preserved, but with an iconographic program that can still be reconstructed. When Matteo commissioned the frescoes, the lawyers and judges of the Ambrosian Church no longer met in the Hall, but the Rocca had by then become a private seat. Why did Matteo want to decorate it so expensively?

The Hall of Justice is divided into two bays with cross vaults; it is accessed through a door on the south side, in front of which was originally the judge's chair. Each side of the span enclosed two zodiac signs with their respective governing planet in a lunette, framed by a polychrome decoration – which extended to the cordoning of the sails – among the best preserved of the Lombard fourteenth century.

Another peculiarity are the monstrous or extravagant figures that surround only the lunette of the second western span, taken from illustrations of naturalistic texts, such as the De natura rerum by Thomas de Cantimpré.

storiadimilano.it/arte/zodiaco_angera.htm

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Elevation 280 m

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Thursday 23 October

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Location: Angera, Varese, Lombardy, Italy

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Hall of Justice, Rocca di Angera

1. Angera Lakeside Promenade – Rocca di Angera (Borromeo Fortress of Angera) loop from Angera

2. Rocca di Angera (Borromeo Fortress of Angera) – Angera Lakeside Promenade loop from Ranco

3. Angera Lakeside Promenade – Rocca Borromeo di Angera loop from Arona

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