front of the Cathedral of Como
take this with the discussion of this topic to wish everyone a happy Easter .
Coming from the lake seems that the talks with the cupola of the cathedral spire that rises from the front. Coming from Via Vittorio Emanuele, the profile of the facade is a thin blade that rises to the sky.
approaching you focus overlaps
ste niches with statues Crowned Saints, the protectors of stonemasons who worked for centuries there, the premises of the factory the Cathedral, on a Masters of Como.
A fabulous game of tunnels and a ring of columns on the central spire differs from the sharp profile of the other peaks.
On the front, the sides of the main portal, shall be two kiosks that house statues, carved from Thomas always Rodari
representing, individually, not
sonalities Bible, but two lay people, Como the most famous of the Roman Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger.
The side door facing the lake, city known as 'door frog' (for the sculpture, beheaded top the twentieth century, a small amphibian that juts out into a butterfly), is probably the favorite Como.
In medieval sculpture, painting and other art forms found in the churches were designed to the prayer of the illiterate population, and accordingly had to tell the main aspects of the Mass and the Gospel story, the facade of the Duomo Como is the external representation of this prayer that comes from inside the church and then manifests itself outside
The facade is organized in a way that "reflects" the organization of interior space three aisles, and has many similarities with both the facade of the Duomo in Milan, and with that of St. Augustine always Como. The facade, clearly of the Gothic (a Gothic "Italian" that thanks to the spread throughout Europe the work of the Magistri Cumacini will gradually assimilating to the International Gothic), is vertically divided by four pilasters, decorated by a series of sculptures, divide a central and two lateral, the first presents the main entrance, a rose and two windows on either side by elongated, the sides each have a front door and a mullioned window set above. Most of the sculptures on the facade are due to be Amunzio Lurago, or his school, and are made in the Gothic style, some of these sculptures are, however, Renaissance characters properly (for example, are more detached from the wall and enjoy autonomy from the bottom while the Gothic integral to the back wall).
Above the portal there are two rounds in which two sculptures representing Adam and Eve, over five sculptures of saints are placed in a sort of loggia (organized as in an altarpiece) with the center of the Madonna at her sides S. John the Baptist and St. Hilary, on top of these sculptures is another round (also clearly Gothic) in which the sculpture of a young man, according to the conventions of the time, represents the Holy Spirit (this representation was abolished in 700 by Pope Benedict XV); 
on top of the canopy it carries a small kiosk where a statue representing God the Father, above the canopy, there are three niches, the two sides represent the angel Gabriel to the one, the virgin and the other, while the upper, center (to clear the Renaissance style ) represents the resurrection.
This description is known as the central part of the facade is structured in a very precise way: at Adam and Eve represent humanity, while going up and still meet the saints above, and God in the highest
This type of approach is reflected in the entire facade: the lowest part of the pilasters are represented ordinary people (eg outside the pilaster on the left is represented a woman, it was found be, wrongly, Joan of Arc, and, beside a man who is believed to be, again erroneously, San Giorgio, and is simply a mercenary), meet the saints is going up on the edges of the pilasters know windows in the middle (some clearly identified, other as yet unknown), going up front and in the ideal hierarchy, is located in the most high "Gugliotta" that God is speaking of the disposition of the façade is also possible to find the center, the Trinity: the Holy Spirit represented beneath the canopy, which in turn represents Christ, while above the canopy is represented God the Father. Above the portal of entry doors and side are present in the lunettes are represented scenes from the life of Mary, the middle, above the portal has represented the Adoration of the Magi,
while the other scenes (also above the doors on the sides of the church) are the visit of Mary to Elizabeth, the presentation in the temple, the flight into Egypt, the two kiosks on the show, however, rose the Annunciation. Operand another type of reading you can see that the facade of the Duomo di Como ideally represent the society of which he participated, in different ways for its implementation: so monastic orders are represented by statues of saints or founders of their brethren, and similarly the various guilds had to enter their patron saint, at the bottom instead of men and women, which have been discussed above, represent the people in its entirety, along with some symbols that represent probably the most important families of the city that had obviously subsidized construction. Just as in a scene all of society Como era is ideally represented in the facade of the cathedral. About the different saints represented you may notice some peculiarities probably not random: in the pilaster on the left, towards the lake, is the S. Christopher, protector of travelers, and by side with staff and cloak, San Giacomo, a pilgrim and traveler par excellence, both facing the lake. On the other hand, we find the right pilaster of S. Francis and, nearby, other Franciscan monks, and it seems no coincidence that in that direction at the time they were some Franciscan monasteries, and the same applies to other holy founders of other religious orders, in the city, then having to fill all the "boxes" that make up the facade has been left out then this sort of symbolic provision, by including the various saints in a more random (there are also a couple of repetitions of the same saint, one of the pilasters and side a window in one case and two pilasters in the other). Instead of talking more geometric composition of the facade, you can understand why the two windows on either side of the portal are higher than the aisles: If you imagine from the canopy to draw a circle concentric to it, passing through the round in which represented the Holy Spirit, we get the summit of the central window, while another circle, concentric the previous ones, which passes through the top newsstand is the highest summit of the side windows, finally, with another circle, always concentric to the above, that steps to the top of Gugliotta, you can locate the position of the two doors' side input. Finally, the position of the canopy is not random in the facade, it is possible to note, describing the largest triangle contained within the façade, the canopy is in its center.
Pier
