Milan city is the 2nd city in Italy and the capital of Lombardy. The city proper has a population of about 1.35 million, while its urban area is the 5th largest in the EU and the largest in Italy with an estimated population of about 5.2 million.
Around 400 BC, the Celtic Insubres settled Milan and the surrounding region. In 222 BC, the Romans conquered the settlement, which was then renamed Mediolanum. With the Edict of Milan of 313, Emperor Constantine I guaranteed freedom of religion for Christians. The city was besieged by the Visigoths in 402, so the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna. Then in 452, the Huns overran the city, followed by the distruction of the city in 539 by the Ostrogoths during the course of the Gothic War against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. In the summer of 569, the Lombards (from which the name of the Italian region Lombardy derives), a Teutonic tribe conquered Milan, overpowering the small Byzantine army left for to defend it. Milan surrendered to the Franks in 774 when Charlemagne, in an utterly novel decision, took the title "King of the Lombards" as well as other titles he held. Thus the Iron Crown of Lomnbady dates from this period and made Milan part of the Holy Roman Empire.
During the Middle Ages, Milan prospered as a centre of trade due to its command of the rich plain of the Po and routes from Italy across the Alps. The war of conquest by Frederick I Barbarossa against the Lombard cities brought the destruction of much of Milan in 1162. After the founding of the Lombard League in 1167, Milan took the leading role in this alliance. As a result of the independence that the Lombard cities gained in the Peace of Constance in 1183, Milan became a duchy. In 1208 Rambertino Buvalelli served a term as podestà (Chief magistrate of a city state), Then came in 1242 Luca Grimaldi, and in 1282 Luchetto Gattilusio. The position could be fraught with personal dangers in the violent political life of the medieval commune: in 1252 Milanese heretics assassinated the Church's Inquisitor, later known as St. Peter Martyr, at a ford in the nearby contado; the killers bribed their way to freedom, and in the ensuing riot the podestà was very nearly lynched. In 1256 the archbishop and leading nobles were expelled from the city. (Here the castle history tells most of what transpired then on in the city).
Milan hosts La Scala operahouse, considered one of the most prestigious operahouses in the world, and throughout history has hosted the premieres of numerous operas, such as Nabucco by Guiseppe Verdi in 1842, La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli, Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini in 1904, Turandot by Puccini in 1926, and more recently Teneke, by Fabio Vacchi in 2007. Another major theatre in Milan is the Teatro degli Arcimboldi (pictured in my show).
A fire destroyed the previous theatre, the Teattro Regio Ducale, on 25 February 1776, after a Carnival gala. A group of ninety wealthy Milanese, who owned palchi (private boxes) in the theatre, wrote to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este asking for a new theatre and a provisional one to be used while completing the new one. The neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini produced an initial design but it was rejected by Count Firmian (the governor of the then Austrian Lombardy). A second plan was accepted in 1776 by Empress Maria Teresa. The new theatre was built on the former location of the church of Santa Maria della Scala, from which the theatre gets its name. The church was deconsecrated and demolished, and over a period of two years the theatre was completed by Pietro Marliani, Pietro Nosetti and Antonio and Giuseppe Fe. The theatre had a total over 3,000 seats organized into 678 pit-stalls, arranged in six tiers of boxes above which is the 'loggione' or two galleries. Its stage is one of the largest in Italy (16.15m d x 20.4m w x 26m h).
Building expenses were covered by the sale of palchi, which were lavishly decorated by their owners, impressing observers such as Stendhal. La Scala (as it came to be known) soon became the preeminent meeting place for noble and wealthy Milanese people. In the tradition of the times, the platea (the main floor) had no chairs and spectators watched the shows standing up. The orchestra was in full sight, as the golfo mistico (orchestra pit) had not yet been built.
The great Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, realized by Giuseppe Mangoni between 1865 and 1877 to celebrate Vittorio Emanuele II, is a covered passage with a glass and cast iron roof, inspired by the Burlington Arcade in London. Many famous designers have shops here and equals that of Worth Avenue in Palm Beach or Rodeo Road in Beverly Hills.
The origins of the Castle of Milan, what's called the Castle Porto Giovia (Jove Gate), date to the Visconti epoch when, in 1368, GaleazzoII Visconti, Lord of Milan, commissioned a fortified structure to be built on the walls of the city in order to defend the medieval gate.
Reinforced an enlarged by successors, Gian Galeazzo (1385 – 1402) and Filippo Maria Visconti (1412 – 1447). The castle was a valid defense against enemies from inside and outside the city. In 1447, with the proclamation of the Auea Repubblica Ambrosiana (Golden Ambrosian Republic), the Visconti Castle, a symbol of past tyranny, was systematically destroyed by the furor of the populace.
Francisco Sforza, the condottiere and able Duke of Milan from 1450 – 1466, and to whom the Milanese entrusted the defense of the city against Venice, wanted to rebuild the Castle more grandly and more majestically. For this project, he called famous engineers and architects, like Giovanni da Milano, Jacopo da Cardona, Bartolomeo Gadio, and Antonio di Pietro Averulino, called “il Filarete.” Since then, the castle has been further enriched and enlarged. With its sumptuous frescoed rooms, it provided an elegant frame for the Renaissance court of Milan which had as its protagonists between 1466 and 1499, Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1466 – 1476), Gian Galeazzo Sforza (1476-1494), and Ludovico Maria Sforza, called “il Moro”, who was deposed by the French in 1499. Among the artists who worked at the Sforza court were Donato Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci.
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, the castle were used by the foreign occupations as barracks, horse stalls, and storerooms. It underwent the greatest transformations during the long period of the Spanish domination (1535 – 1706) when the sumptuous royal residence became a fortress in the form of a star. It remained a fortress, even under the Savoy and Austrian occupation from 1706 – 1796, until the Napoleonic conquests in 1796.
In 1800, Napoleon began the demolition of the fortified walls to make way for an area adapted to the realization of a grand, but never completed project: the Foro Buonaparte (Buonaparte Forum).
Only at the end of the 19th century was the restoration to a castle realized. The work was entrusted to the architect Luca Beltrami from 1891 to 1911 who reconstructed, among other things, the principal tower, today called the ‘Tower of Filarete’, which an explosion had caused to collapse in 1521. Beltrami realized the necessary spaces to make the whole building a place for the historical memory of the city.
The Milanese fortress, newly occupied by the Austrians from 1831 to 1858 again was used as a war machine during the cinque-giorante (five famous days of civil war from 18 – 27 March 1848) of Milan when General Radetrzky installed his artillery on top of the round towers in order to attack the citizens in revolt. The castle became a barracks for the Italian troops after the unification of Italy (1861) and finally was seeded to the city of Milan in 1887.
Today, the Sforza Castle, and incomparable ensemble of architecture and collections, is deceit of important museological collections, like the Museum of Ancient Art, the Picture Gallery, the Museum of Decorative Arts, the ‘Achille Bertarelli’ Prints collection and the Trivulziana Library.
Milan Cathedral (Italian: Duomo di Milano; Lombard: Domm de Milan) is dedicated to Santa Maria Nascente (Saint Mary Nascent), and is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, currently Cardinal Angelo Scola.
The gothic cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete. It is the fifth largest cathedral in the world and the largest in the Italian state territory (discounting Saint Petere’s in The Vatican).
Milan's layout, with streets either radiating from the Duomo or circling it, reveals that the Duomo occupies what was the most central site in Roman Mediolanum, that of the public basicila facing the forum. Saint Ambrose’s 'New Basilica' was built on this site at the beginning of the 5th century, with an adjoining basilica added in 836. The old baptistery (Battistero Paleocristiano, constructed in 335) still can be visited under the Milan Cathedral, it is one of the oldest Christian buildings in Europe. When a fire damaged the cathedral and basilica in 1075, they were later rebuilt as the Duomo.
The plan consists of a nave with four side-aisles, crossed by a transept and then followed by choir and apse. The height of the nave is about 45 meters, the highest gothic vaults of a complete church. The roof is open to tourists (for a fee), which allows many a close-up view of some spectacular sculpture that would otherwise be unappreciated. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, set upon delicate flying buttresses. The huge building is of brick construction, faced with marble from the quarries which Gian Galeazzo Visconti donated in perpetuity to the cathedral chapter. Its maintenance and repairs are very complicated.
On May 20, 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte, about to be crowned King of Italy, ordered the façade to be finished by Carlo Pellicani. In his enthusiasm, he assured that all expenses would fall to the French treasurer, who would reimburse the Fabbrica for the real estate it had to sell. Even though this reimbursement was never paid, it still meant that finally, within only seven years, the Cathedral had its façade completed. The new architect, Carlo Pellicani Junior, largely followed Buzzi's project, adding some neo-Gothic details to the upper windows. As a form of thanksgiving, a statue of Napoleon was placed at the top of one of the spires. Napoleon was crowned King of Italy at the Duomo. In the following years, most of the missing arches and spires were constructed. The statues on the southern wall were also finished, while in 1829-1858, new stained glass windows replaced the old ones, though with less aesthetically significant results. The last details of the cathedral were finished only in the 20th century: the last gate was inaugurated on January 6, 1965. This date is considered the very end of a process which had proceeded for generations, although even now, some uncarved blocks remain to be completed as statues. The Duomo's main façade went under renovation from 2003 to early 2009, uncovered it now shows the colors of the Candoglia marble.
