Medea Colleoni

- cappellacolleoni.smilevisit.it - Colleoni's natural and favourite daughter, Medea, died of pneumonia on 6 March 1470 in the Malpaga Castle at the age of 15. The elderly Bartolomeo was very distressed and in about 1471 started negotiations with Giovanni Antonio Amadeo to build her funeral monument: the sepulchre, created in white Carrara marble, was to be located not far from the Malpaga Castle, at Urgnano, in the church of the convent of Basella erected previously by the Captain who had always been interested in the founding, restoring and conserving of religious buildings as a valid method of consolidating his power over the territory. On the bottom of the lower sarcophagus is the signature of the artist "JOVANES ANTONIUS DE AMADEIS FECIT HOC OPUS", while the larger inscription in marble on top demonstrates that the monument was concluded after Bartolomeo's death, and therefore after November 1475. According to the two inscriptions on the black marble at the bottom, Medea's tomb was transferred from Urgnano into the Colleoni Chapel in 1842, and on this occasion the stucco crown of laurel leaves and the two doves designed by architect Giacomo Bianconi were added. Medea's little pet bird was also found embalmed inside and is still preserved in a glass bell inside the Chapel. There is probably the reference to this pet, the girl's companion during her life and also her death, in the bird sculpted in relief on the top of the left pilaster.