Nothern span 1
The first northern span is lit by the Gothic window of the façade, but it remains blind above the altar because it is leaning against the wall of the Broletto.
The stained glass window painted by Pompeo Bertini from Milan (1854-1855) represents the saints Liberata and Faustina, Proto and Giacinto.
The altar-piece was painted in 1502 by Andrea de Passeris, a painter from Torno (Lake Como) : it depicts the Madonna with the Child between the saints Peter (with the book and the keys) and Thomas (with the belt that Mary entrusted to him according to the tradition). Two members of Vitudono family, the canon Giacomo, the donor, and a relative are kneeling. The Renaissance perspective painting still retains late Gothic motifs: the hierarchy is evident in the size of the figures and the drape held by the angels. Originally rectangular in size it was adapted to a marble frame of 1717.
The silver ex-votos around the altar are from 19th and 20th centuries: they express gratitude to Our Lady for the favours received.
Above the altar the tapestry with the Nativity of the Virgin was woven in Florence between 1633 and 1636.
The project cartoon is by Giovan Battista Recchi, a painter from Como, who was inspired by the canvas painted by the Morazzone for the Chapel of the Belt in the church of St. Agostino in Como (1611-1612).
On the counter-façade, between the door and the baptismal font, there is the custody of the holy-oils.
It is made of white Musso marble, carved with a frieze of vine-shoots and birds pecking grapes with a clear Eucharistic meaning. It was originally painted and gilded: it is the tabernacle of the 15th century.
This chapel, directly accessible for the faithful from the square, has been for centuries a space of popular devotion to Our Lady, at first with the altarpiece by Luini (in the 19th century called “Madonna dell’aiuto”) then with that by De Passeris, here moved in the late 17th century.
As for the other side spans, this was considered a chapel in all respects, dedicated to St. Girolamo, a Father of the Church, depicted in the painted half-relief in the keystone of the cross-vault above the span . The Raimondi family owned the chapel; the altarpiece of Bernardino Luini now in the fifth southern span comes from here.
The tapestry of the Nativity of the Virgin, which remained for decades rolled up in the warehouse over the Mansionary’s Vestry was relocated here in May 2016.
It is the largest tapestry in the Cathedral (cm 468 x 426) and the last one. It was made between 1633 and 1636, and it is the only one taller than it is wide and also the only one designed by an artist from Como, Giovan Battista Recchi (oil on canvas, Dijon, Musée Magnin). Woven in wool and silk in Florence by the tapestry maker Scipione Ammirati, the tapestry arrived in Como in 1636. 1461 lire were paid by the Compagnia del Ss. Sacramento.
The border, designed by Recchi, has around the tapestry little angels with vegetable festoons and medallions with the Annunciation, the Assumption and the Jacob’s Ladder, a Marian emblem. Exhibited in the Mostra Voltiana in Como 1899, the tapestry was then hung here..
The stained glass window of St. Liberata was designed again in natural size and remade by the Corvaia and Bazzi company of Milan after the damage of a hurricane (1922-1923).