Concerning the wooden armatures in Romanesque churches in northern Italy. San Ambrogio and San Celso in Milan, San Michele in Pavia, by Tancredi Bella The archives of the engineer Fernand de Dartein (1838-1912) are an important source for many Romanesque churches in northern Italy. They include a wide variety of graphic material (sketches, drawings, letters, plates) made in situ for the engravings of the colossal monograph, Etude sur l'architecture lombarde (1865-1882). Observing the monuments during their restoration in the second half of the nineteenth century, Dartein noted interesting details of construction and paid great attention to the use of wood in Romanesque construction. The most interesting discoveries concern the basilica of San Ambrogio in Milan, where one finds a kind of chaining, made of wooden armatures sunken into the lateral walls between the great arcades and the tribunes of the nave. Beams were also sunken into the walls of the cupola surmounting the choir, as well as in the walls of the atrium. If one can trust the drawing of the Italian restorer Gaetano Landriani, wooden tie rods were perhaps placed between the pillars in the nave of San Celso in Milan. The function of a beam sunken into the south exterior wall of the basilica of San Michele in Pavia remains to be clarified. These Lombard examples can be compared to analogous solutions adopted at the same time in other regions of northern Italy and in some Burgundian buildings.
