Architecture sights in Lombardy & The Lakes
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A
Duomo
A frenzy of flying buttresses, 135 spires and a staggering 3200 statues, Milan’s Gothic Duomo is the world’s largest of its kind, and third largest in any style in Europe. This vision of pink-tinged Candoglia marble was commissioned in 1386 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti and has a capacity for a congregation of 40,000 (Milan’s population at the time).
Centuries of construction (from east to west) finally saw it largely completed in 1812 (although various bits and bobs would not be attached until the 1960s). Crowning this Gothic splendour is a gilded copper statue of the Madonnina (Little Madonna), the city’s traditional protector. Curiously, there’s no bell tower.
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reviewed
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B
Villa Necchi Campiglio
Set in a huge garden with a swimming pool, tennis court and tall magnolia trees, this 1932 Piero Portaluppi-designed house is a symbol of the city’s industrial wealth and modernist imaginings. The superbly refurbished interiors are redolent of the Necchi sisters’ privileged lifestyle, with a profusion of intriguing domestic detail, while the walls are hung with a collection of 20th-century Italian paintings. The garden restaurant opens until 9pm most evenings.
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C
San Babila
Built on the site of a 2nd-century pagan temple, this squat church has suffered at the hands of overzealous renovators (the last add-on being the Neo-Romanesque facade and bell tower early last century). Still, it exerts a calm force amid the swirling visual din of supersized billboards, office blocks and ever-flowing traffic of the piazza, and its lily-scented interior is a serene respite. The Venetian lion-topped column at the entrance dates back to 1656.
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D
Santa Maria Presso San Satiro
Here’s an escape from the Zara/Benneton/H&M maelstrom. Ludovico Sforza saw potential in this little church built on top of the 9th-century mausoleum of martyr San Satiro, and asked architect Donato Bramante to refurb in 1482. His ambition wasn’t dampened by the project’s scale: a trompe-l’oeil coffered niche on the shallow apse makes the backdrop to the altar mimic the Pantheon in Rome.
reviewed
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E
San Francesco di Paola
Tucked in among sprawling temples to fashion in the Quadrilatero d'Oro, this little gem of a church outshines Armani's glittering megastore across the street. Although commissioned by the Minimi order in 1728, it's hardly minimalist, but tricked out in Baroque pomp with gilt galore, a graceful 1890 neoclassical façade, and a chapel altarpiece by Guerini.
reviewed
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F
Sant'Eustorgio
Like Milan's fusion restaurants, this façade is a mish-mash of styles that somehow works. Sant'Eustorgio was built in the 9th century, updated in the 11th, boosted with Bramante's baptistery in the 15th, and given a neo-Romanesque look in the 19th; today, its harmonious exterior belies its rabble-rousing past as Milan's Inquisition centre.
reviewed
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G
Stazione Centrale
Some call it mighty, others call it mighty ugly, but the 1931 Central Station is certainly the most unavoidable monument in Milan. Nearly 100 million people every year pass through these hulking portals, up escalators past Fascist mosaics extolling the virtues of Lombardy (mostly culinary), and onward to train platforms and parts unknown.
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H
San Lorenzo Columns
The freestanding row of 16 Corinthian columns from Milan’s Mediolanum heyday were salvaged from a crumbling Roman residence and lined up here to form the portico of the new church. Their pagan spirit lingers; welcome to the site of many an evening’s beery indulgence.
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Certosa di Pavia
One of the Italian Renaissance’s most notable buildings is the splendid Certosa di Pavia. Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan founded the monastery, 10km north of Pavia, in 1396 as a private chapel for the Visconti family and a home for 12 monks.
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I
Torre Rasini
This squat block clad in the smoothest white marble and dark, textured tower were designed by Gio Ponti and Emilio Lancia in 1934. The odd pairing is indicative of the tension going on between the Novecento and Rationalist architectural styles.
reviewed
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J
San Bernardino alle Ossa
Hidden down a corridor on the right of the main church, this small 17th-century ossuary has some bony rococo detailing, but most of the skulls, leg and arm bones are stacked to form creepy cruciform patterns.
reviewed