Stories from the New Testament

The large apse window V19 of Milan Duomo is dedicated to stories from the New Testament. The reading of the episodes is from bottom to top, left to right. The work was amongst the first stained-glass windows to be made in the Cathedral, together with the large central window of the Apocalypse and large window V21, which traces episodes from the Old Testament. Already by the second decade of the 15th century, the window deserved the attention of the Fabbricieri, who commissioned the construction of the panels dedicated to the life of Christ to artists such as Franceschino Zavattari, Maffiolo da Cremona and Giovanni Recalcati. The participation of other master glassmakers of prime importance in the first half of the 16th century is attested, and new work to the stained-glass window led to the creation of the cycle of episodes from the Passion of Christ by Pietro da Velate. From 1830, all the 14th and 15th-century panels originally located in stained-glass window V19 were moved to other windows so as to leave space for a modern stained-glass window made, starting from 1838, by Giovan Battista Bertini and finished in the second half of the century by his sons Pompeo and Giuseppe. This is the current decoration of stained-glass window V19.