Design is fine. History is mine.

This is a wonderful example of the way the great Achille Castiglioni looked at things – his inspiration was never confined to “design” itself. He collected anonymous objects, studied industrial components, mechanisms and observed especially everyday things. And, obviously he looked at art.

In this case it was The Brera Madonna, one of Piero della Francesca’s enigmatic paintings, created around 1472–74 for Federico da Montefeltro. You see the Duke of Urbino kneeling in armour. Above the Madonna, suspended from the shell-shaped apse by a cord, hangs an ostrich egg. More about this in a second.

More than five centuries later, Achille Castiglioni looked at this strange detail … and saw a light. Taken out of its Renaissance architecture, the almost abstract form became an opaline glass diffuser, illuminated from within.

His Brera lamp, designed for Flos in 1992, takes its ovoid form from Piero’s egg. The reference continues in its name: Brera, after the Milanese museum where the painting hangs. Piero’s altarpiece had been in the Pinacoteca di Brera since 1811. Castiglioni was born in Milan and spent his working life there, his studio at Piazza Castello 27, was only a short walk from the Pinacoteca di Brera. It is tempting to imagine how often he might have encountered the painting there.

The meaning of Piero’s egg is complex. In Christian symbolism, the egg was associated with birth and Resurrection. According to a medieval belief, the ostrich left its eggs to be hatched by the heat of the sun, without physical contact – an idea that made it a symbol of the Virgin Birth. But there is also a connection to the Montefeltro family: the ostrich was not only their heraldic emblem, the egg was also linked to Federico and to the birth of his son and heir Guidobaldo in 1472. Perhaps for the Castiglioni story its precise meaning is not the most important thing. What matters is what he saw in it: a form with another possible life, a form for light.

By the way, the story did not end in 1992. In 2016, when the Pinacoteca di Brera reorganised the gallery containing Piero’s masterpiece, a Brera lamp entered the museum. Produced and donated by Flos, Castiglioni’s light was installed to illuminate the painting that once had inspired it.

Installation view of the exhibition “Achille Castiglioni: Design!” 1997–1998. ;o;A/Cosmit. Photo by Thomas Griesel. Below you see the exhibition poster, Poster, created by The MoMA and Cosmit

Brera floor and hanging lamps, 1992. Acid-treated blown glass, steel, plastic, (30 × 15.2 × 15.2 cm; 11 13/16 × 6 x 6″) Manufactured by Flos. The diffuser is split in two parts held together by a ring nut to assure easy access to the bulb and to provide cooling (designed before LED, when bulbs got hot). Right now Brera is discontinued by Flos.

Sources and further reading

The Museum of Modern Art, New York: Achille Castiglioni: Design!, 1997. Exhibition catalogue 1997 (PDF) Includes the Brera lamp and the historical photograph credited to Flos.

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Collection documentation for Piero della Francesca’s Pala di Brera.