Bill Shore’s Letters

Letter From the Cathedral of Milan

Originally published: November 1998

Dear Friend,

The Cathedral of Milan is the second largest gothic cathedral in the world. After more than 500 years of construction, from 1386 to 1887, the inside is as spare and simple as the facade is crowded and ornate. As I stand inside it at sunset, the near empty space gradually grows darker and for each of us traveling alone, the aloneness draws closer, like an overcoat being buttoned one button at a time.

The Cathedral is built upon the ruins of the fourth century's original cathedral. Crystalline pinkish-white marble from the quarry at Candoglia was carried down a mountainside and loaded onto barges and then carried to Milan by waterways. Napoleon stood on it when he was crowned King of Italy here in 1805. The quiet coolness of the cathedral is welcoming. A few people pray and take confession. Others light candles. A circle of Asian tourists move like a choreographed troupe. School girls in the last pew are sketching for art class. In the nave, several pairs of lovers take refuge. They whisper in voices only pillows have heard, relieved and grateful that the vast cathedral not only condones but demands intimacy. Surrounded by stained glass so precious it was removed and hidden during World War II's bombing raids, the vivid colors are unlike anything ever seen on canvas or screen.

All day long Milanese on their way to or from work or market pour in for prayer or reflection. I step outside and watch them stream across the Piazza del Duomo from side streets and subway stations. Many are regulars, so accustomed to the towering spires outside and the brilliant stained glass within that they no more look up than New Yorkers would walking by the Empire State Building. When I step back inside, the Cathedral is still empty, so vast is this space that one hundred people fill it no more successfully than do five.

Of at least one thing I'm certain: the builders of this cathedral did not consider inspiration and faith as bi-products or fringe benefits of their work. Rather it was the core purpose, the essential, uncompromisable ingredient of the entire architecture and design. Every other consideration was secondary to this. One can't stand in the aisles, dwarfed by the 36 massive pillars and stare at the unfathomable vaults and buttresses and not know this to be true. The vast majority of those who worked on this (and every other) cathedral, did so knowing they would not live to see the final, finished achievement. This didn't diminish their dedication or craftsmanship. The evidence suggests it enhanced it.

Cathedral building required sharing strength on a scale never seen before or perhaps since. When construction commenced on the Milan Cathedral, craftsmen came from across Europe -- stonecutters, sculptors, master masons, blacksmiths and carpenters -- and cooperated to an unprecedented degree. While nobles made large financial donations, contributions came from all citizens, sharing whatever their strengths happened to be. Weavers, bakers, butchers, tanners, millers, and fishermen took turns donating their services, without salary, as did physicians and apothecaries. It is said the Vicar worked in the stone yard. Groups of young women dressed in white went through town and countryside collecting offerings.

Somehow it had been both communicated and understood that it wasn't just that building a truly great cathedral would require everyone to share their strength, but rather that everyone sharing their strength would result in a truly great cathedral. For the past two tears I've been a student of cathedrals. I visited the great Cathedral of Milan and studied the history of its construction. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC, opened its doors to me and generously made its staff available for questions. I've spent many days at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. I've recalled my visits to the Duomo in Florence, and Chartres and Notre Dame. Each can be counted among the most remarkable man-made structures on the planet.

There is a special feeling that comes with entering any one of them. It is definite and distinct. It's a feeling inside the chest palpable enough to be physical. First, the sharp intake of breath. The cool damp scent of ancient marble can be inhaled like a mist. You take a few steps but only a few and then you stop. Your eyes adjust to the light. You look up as the cathedral builders meant for you to do. The ribbed vaults and flying buttresses seem to effortlessly support the weight of the roof. You take a few more steps and stop again. You're not sure how to take in everything before you, not sure what to look at first or low long to study it or see it more clearly: The exquisite carvings of the walnut choir stalls with their 71 images of the Martyrs. The parapet on the south pulpit recalling the heroic feats of Saul and David. The archbishop's magnificent chair. The brilliant stained glass windows that tell of everything from the life of Ambrose to the story of Samson and the lions. There is almost a measure of regret that what you behold is too great to truly know in the short time you've allotted. The sense of being overwhelmed is finally tempered by the quiet and stillness.

I've tried to understand this feeling and the ingredients that give it such unique flavor and texture. It's more than that art and craftsmanship are aesthetically pleasing. I've tried to understand why the feeling embodies both pleasure and power. The words often used to describe it are so familiar as to be clichés: "inspirational," "awe," "spiritual." Surely all of those are factors. But they are not what I think the feeling is really about. They are not what beats at the heart of it. I think the feeling is about what went into building the cathedral, what you might know about it, what you can imagine, and what you know you can never know or imagine. Stone is stone and glass is glass. But they are not that anymore, not here. There has been a transformation. It is the transformation that you feel. It stirs something within. It touches a life force. The way the cathedral's stone and glass have come to be fit together suggests something monumental not about the cathedral as a building, but about the act of building it, about the forces of humanity marshaled in behalf of this creation. How powerful would it be to crack the atom of that transformation? What energy would be released? How would it be measured?

We know that when we eat an apple we get energy from it. That energy is measured in calories. As every school child knows, one of the iron laws of physics is that energy is never created or destroyed, it is only transferred. So the amount of calories, or energy, we get from an apple is equivalent to the amount of calories, or energy, that was contributed to growing that apple. All of natures varied forces that came together to bring apple and tree into creation, are there to be savored in the sweet juices that give us strength. Think of all that went into building a cathedral. Muscle surely. Ingenuity. Vision. Will. Layer upon layer of knowledge -- of design, architecture, physics -- accumulated over the years and passed along across generations. Energy of almost immeasurable proportions. Is there doubt that blood and tears mixed with the sweat that spilled into ancient soil during its centuries of construction? Is there doubt that the builders devoted their entire lives to it without ever being able to see their work finished? Or that entire fortunes were sacrificed in its behalf. The story of any single aspect of it, whether the quarrying and transporting of marble hundreds of miles on oxcarts and the backs of men, or the painstaking chiseling of the master sculptors and their apprentices would read like an epic saga. And so it surrounds us like an enormous gift that we can never repay, a gift not of architecture but of humanity. This is what we're feeling, what catches our breath. We become custodians of a bond between ourselves and people who shared and sacrificed for our pleasure and benefit. That is what touches and transforms us, what quickens the beat of our own hearts.

Of the many lessons to be learned from the cathedral builders there are at least five fundamental principles which give meaning and purpose to our lives and work and can make our communities stronger. First, they understood that devoting your life to a cause you will never see completed need not diminish one's craftsmanship and dedication, but can actually enhance it. Second, cathedral building requires the sharing of strength, the contribution of not just the artisans and experts, but of everyone in the community. Third, the great cathedrals are built, literally, upon the foundations of earlier efforts. They are stronger, more solid, and better built for incorporating the work that came before. Fourth, cathedrals were sustained and maintained because they actually generated their own wealth and support. The main source of funding for their building or renovation was income from accumulated land and property. And finally, cathedrals were intentionally designed to convey stories and values and pass along best practices and thereby perpetuate a philosophy and organizational culture.

The aspiration to be part of something bigger and more lasting than ourselves is universal in human nature. It is not beyond the reaches of either research or instruction. It has applicability in many fields. In the mid-1990's a consistent best-seller, translated into a number of languages, was a business book called "Built To Last." The authors, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, studied the great visionary and enduring companies like Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Disney, and 3M, among others. They found that their leaders were not just good "time-tellers" but "clock builders" who institutionalized greatness. They identified the key lessons and strategies of leaders responsible for companies "built to last." One fundamental distinguishing characteristic is that they "preserve a cherished core ideology while simultaneously stimulating progress and change in everything that is not part of their core ideology." There are other ingredients as well, such as setting "Big Hairy Audacious Goals," and careful attention to succession planning.

Many of their findings appeal outside the corporate world and have been wisely embraced by visionary and entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations as well. Their utility and applicability in that sector is unquestioned. But fundamentally they were developed to explain the success of enterprises that create shareholder wealth. As a result, the "built to last" framework is instructive, but too limited.

When the objective shifts from creating shareholder wealth, to creating community health, the lessons of clock builders pale in comparison to the lessons of cathedral builders. Indeed there's probably not a clock anywhere in the world built to last as long as the great gothic cathedrals that continue to grace the sites on which they were constructed centuries ago. That is why at this moment in history, our country desperately needs the lessons of the cathedral builders to create a better future for the next generation.

Billy Shore's signature