gaged in modelling the lovely terra-cotta frieze of children and
the medallions bearing, it is said, his own portrait and that of
Bramante. The noble church of S. Maria presso San Celso, which in
Burckhardt's opinion combines magnificence and simplicity better than
any building of the Renaissance, was the work of Bramante's assistant,
Dolcebuono, and owed its erection to the munificence of Lodovico, who
laid the first stone in 1491. Nor were churches and palaces the only
buildings upon which Lodovico lavished his gold and employed his most
distinguished masters. In those days, the hospitals of Rome, Florence,
Venice and Siena were the finest in Europe, and when Luther visited
Rome, he is said to have been more impressed by the size and splendour
of the hospitals, than by anything else in Italy. The great Moro,
determined not to allow Milan to remain behind his age in this respect,
employed Bramante to adorn the Gothic buildings of the Ospedale Maggiore
with the arched windows and stately porticoes that we still admire,
while he encircled the cloisters with marble shafts and terra-cotta
mouldings after his own heart. And in 1488, after his own recovery from
illness, and that terrible visitation of the plague which had carried
off fifty thousand inhabitants of Milan in six months, Lodovico founded
the vast Lazzaretto, which still deserves its proud title, and may well
be called a "glorious refuge for Christ's poor."

Meanwhile the works of the Duomo of Milan, that other great foundation
of the Visconti dukes, were being vigorously carried on. In 1481,
Lodovico had nominated his favourite Pavian master, Amadeo, the
architect of the Certosa, as Capomaestro in succession to Guiniforte
Solari; but the Councillors of the Fabric declined to accept his
suggestion, and sent to Strasburg for a German architect, John
Nexemperger of Graz, who held the office for some years, but effected
little, and was finally dismissed in 1486. After his departure, the
ruinous state of the central cupola requiring immediate attention,
Lodovico invited Luca Fancelli, the chief architect of the Gonzagas at
Mantua, to visit Milan, and by his advice Leonardo, Bramante, and other
leading masters were invited in 1487 to design models for a new cupola.
On this occasion Leonardo executed a model, which, however, does not
seem to have satisfied the Fabbricieri, and after applying in vain to
his ambassador in Rome and Florence for a master able and willing to