The area south of Piazza del Duomo is relatively thin on tourist
attractions, with few real targets and unalluring streets. However,
the charming church of San Satiro (daily 8-11am &
3.30-6.30pm), off the busy shopping street of Via Torino, is a
study in ingenuity, commissioned from Milan's foremost Renaissance
architect, Bramante, in 1476. Originally the oratory of the
adjacent ninth-century church of San Satiro, it was transformed by
Bramante into a long-naved basilica by converting the long oblong
oratory into the transept and adding a wonderful trompe l'oeil apse
onto the back wall.
Five minutes away, just off Via Torino at Piazza Pio 2, the
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (Tues-Sun 10am-5.30pm; L12,000/€6.20)
was founded by another member of the Borromeo family, Cardinal
Federico Borromeo, in the early seventeenth century. The cardinal
collected ancient manuscripts, assembling one of the largest
libraries in Europe, though what you come here for now is his art
collection, stamped with his taste for Jan Brueghel,
sixteenth-century Venetians and some of the more kitsch followers
of Leonardo. Among many mediocre works, there is a rare painting by
Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of a Musician , a cartoon by
Raphael for the School of Athens, and a Caravaggio considered to be
Italy's first ever still life. The museum's quirkiest exhibit,
however, is a lock of Lucrezia Borgia's hair - put for safe-keeping
in a glass phial ever since Byron (having decided that her hair was
the most beautiful he had ever seen) extracted one as a keepsake
from the library downstairs where it used to be kept
unprotected.
Cutting across Via Torino and Via Mazzini to Corso di Porta
Romano, one of the city's busiest radial roads, takes you to the
church of San Nazaro . It's something of a minor sight, but
the severe octagonal chapel which serves as its vestibule was the
family church of one of the city's better-known traitors - the
condottiere Giangiacomo Trivulzio, who led the French attack
on Milan to spite his rival Lodovico Sforza and was rewarded by
being made the city's French governor. His tomb and those of his
family are contained in niches around the walls, the inscription
above Giangiacomo's reading, "He who never rested now rests:
silence."
Behind San Nazaro, the Ospedale Maggiore - once known
locally as the "Ca' Granda" (Big House) - was an ambitious project
undertaken by the Florentine architect Filarete to unite the city's
numerous hospitals and charitable institutions on one site. His
hopes of introducing Renaissance architecture to Milan were
dampened by local architects who, as soon as Filarete returned to
Florence, introduced the late-Gothic elements clearly visible on
the facade. To get a clearer idea of Filarete's intentions, step
inside to look at the courtyards - eight small ones formed by two
crucifixes, separated by a ninth rectangular one. Today the
building houses the city's university.