The unquestioned hub of the city is Piazza del Duomo , a
large, mostly pedestrianized square that's rarely quiet at any time
of day. Harassed Milanese hurry out of the metro station deftly
avoiding the pigeon-feed sellers and ice cream vendors;
designer-dressed kids hang out on the steps of the cathedral;
harassed tour-guides gather together their flocks; and
well-preserved women stiletto-click across the square to glitzy
cafés.
The Duomo is the world's largest Gothic cathedral, begun
in 1386 under the Viscontis and completed nearly five centuries
later. The finishing touches to the facade were finally added in
1813, and from the outside at least it's an incredible building,
notable as much for its decoration as its size and with a front
that's a strange mixture of Baroque and Gothic. The marble, chosen
specially by the Viscontis, comes from the quarries of Candoglia
near Lago Maggiore and continues to be used in renovation today -
the fabric not surprisingly under severe attack from Milan's
polluted atmosphere.
Inside the duomo, a green, almost subterranean half-light
filters through the stained glass windows, lending the marble
columns a bone-like hue that led the French writer Suarés to
compare the interior to "the hollow of a colossal beast". By the
entrance, the brass strip embedded in the pavement with the signs
of the zodiac alongside is Europe's largest sundial, laid out in
1786. A beam of light still falls on it through a hole in the
ceiling, though changes in the Earth's axis mean that it's no
longer accurate. To the right, the sixteenth-century statue of St
Bartholomew, with his flayed skin thrown like a toga over his
shoulder, is one of the church's more gruesome statues, with veins,
muscles and bones sculpted with anatomical accuracy, the draped
skin retaining the form of knee, foot, toes and toenails.
At the far end of the church, suspended high above the chancel,
a large crucifix contains the most important of the duomo's holy
relics - a nail from Christ's cross, which was crafted to become
the bit for the bridle of Emperor Constantine's horse. The cross is
lowered once a year, on September 14, the Feast of the Cross, by a
device invented by Leonardo da Vinci. Close by, beneath the
presbytery, the Scurolo di San Carlo (daily 9am-noon &
2.30-6pm; L2000/€1.03) is an octagonal crypt designed to house the
remains of St Charles Borromeo, the zealous sixteenth-century
cardinal who was canonized for his unflinching work among the poor
of the city and whose reforms antagonized the higher echelons of
the corrupt Church. He lies here in a glass coffin, clothed,
bejewelled, masked and gloved, wearing a gold crown attributed to
Cellini. Borromeo was also responsible for the large altar in the
north transept, erected in order to close off a door which allowed
the locals to use the cathedral as a short cut to the market.
Adjacent to Borromeo's resting-place, the treasury features
extravagant evangelical covers, Byzantine ivory-work and heavily
embroidered vestments.
Back towards the entrance you'll find the cathedral's
fourth-century Battistero Paleocristiano (daily
9.30am-5.15pm; L3000/€1.55), where St Ambrose baptized St Augustine
in 387 AD. Augustine had arrived in Milan three years earlier with
his illegitimate son, and after sampling various religions, pagan
and Christian, was eventually converted to Christianity by Ambrose,
then the city's bishop. Outside again, from the northwest end of
the cathedral you can get to the cathedral roof (second
weekend in Feb to first week in Nov daily 9am-5.45pm; rest of year
daily 9am-4.15pm; L6000/€3.10 to walk, L9000/€4.65 for the
elevator), where you can stroll around the forest of tracery,
pinnacles and statues while enjoying fine views of the city and on
clear days even the Alps. The highlight is the central spire, its
lacy marble crowned by a gilded statue of the Madonna looking out
over the bodies of the roof sunbathers.
Across the way from the cathedral, the Museo del Duomo
(daily 9.30am-12.30pm & 3-6pm; L10,000/€5.17), housed in a wing
of the Palazzo Reale on the southern side of the piazza, holds
casts of a good many of the 3000 or so statues and gargoyles that
spike the duomo. You can also see how it might have ended up, in a
display of entries for a late nineteenth-century competition of new
designs for the facade. The scheme came to nothing - partly because
the winner died, but mostly because the Milanese had grown attached
to the duomo's distinctive hybrid frontage.