Tower of Babel

The subject of this ancient painting kept in the Duomo Museum has always been identified as the depiction of the Tower of Babel.

The Tower of Babel is a legend of biblical origin; a metaphor for the arrogance of man who challenges nature and God. In the Book of Genesis (11, 1-9) it relates how people embarked on building a tower, the top of which would reach the sky, and how the Lord, offended by their great presumption, put an end to their plans by simply mixing up their languages.

"The whole world had one language and the same words and a common speech. Moving from the East, people came across a plain in the country of Sennar and settled there. They said to each other: Come, let's make bricks and bake them on the fire."

"But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building. The Lord said: Look, this is one people and they all have a common language; this is the beginning of their work and now nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Let us go down and confuse their language so that they will not understand each other anymore.” Genesis 11, 1-9

From an archeological point of view, the biblical Tower of Babel corresponds to the great ziggurat Etemenanki, built in the second millennium BCE and rebuilt numerous times up to the time of Alexander the Great. At the height of its splendor, its base was a square measuring 298 feet (91 m) on each side, and it seems that it was also about 298 feet high.

The panel, which is 46 x 26.5 inches (118 × 67.5 cm), is part of a group of panels that make up the sixteenth completion of the glass panel of the Old Testament initiated by Maffiolo da Cremona. The panel was originally part of window V21; it is in the Duomo Museum since 1950s.

The design is attributed to Giuseppe Arcimboldi, the same creator of the panels known as the View of the city of Bethulia and David and Goliath. Its execution, dated between 1549 and 1557, can be attributed to Corrado de Mochis from Cologne who was director of the glass laboratory of Milan Cathedral at that time.

The tower is represented as a worksite still under construction and brings to mind an image of the yard at that time. In the foreground, the masters are cutting stone and a sculptor is at work; the wooden scaffolding and machinery for lifting the blocks of marble are also interesting since their use on the worksite can be imagined.

Between the glass pieces that make up the door, originally from the 16th century, there do not seem to be any subsequent modern inserts. During a recent cleaning operation, once the thick layer of dirt that covered the door had been removed, the shining glare of the silver egg tempera, a precious pigment applied to embellish the glass chromatically, emerged in all their glory.