Giovanni Antonio Decio per l’Incoronata (1540-1562): l’ultimo Sforza, Milano e Venezia

Giovanni Antonio Decio for the Church of the Incoronata in Lodi (1540-1562): The Last Sforza, Milan and Venice

The essay aims to offer an overall reading of a group of five illuminated manuscripts to be assigned to the Decio workshop, made between 1540 and 1562 for the schola cantorum based in the Tempio Civico della Beata Vergine Incoronata of Lodi, now preserved at the Biblioteca Laudense (Lodi), after the alienation of part of the book heritage decided by the deputies at the end of the 17th century. Comparing the illuminations that inhabit the codices with others made by the workshop or even with the engravings accompanying devotional texts printed and edited in Venice by Scotus around 1540, it was possible to identify Giovanni Antonio Decio (son of the most famous Gian Giacomo) as the person in charge of the order, hypothesis confirmed by the finding of some payments recorded in documents kept at the Tesoreria dellʼIncoronata fund (Archivio Storico Comunale, Lodi). The date on which the operation took place, 27 June 1562, also constitutes the latest testimony regarding the activity of Giovanni Antonio Decio, whose date of death is unknown but set around 1585.