All Monuments in Milan

Arco della Pace is a triumphal arch in Milan, a Neoclassical monument located in Piazza Sempione, separated from Castello Sforzesco by the Sempione Park. The arch, inaugurated on September 10, 1838, during a ceremony attended by the newly crowned emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, is dedicated to the peace established between the European nations at the Vienna Congress of 1815.   SHORT HISTORY The first arch was built in January 1806, on a design by Luigi Cagnola, to celebrate the arrival in Milan of the newlyweds Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, and Princess Augusta of Bavaria. The arch was raised on Corso di Porta Orientale, now Corso Venezia, and was built from canvas, plastic and timber. Given the success of the arch among foreign visitors, the council of Milan, the Municipality of the time, decreed on 8 February that a new marble arch will be erected in a more appropriate place. The new work, designed also by Cagnola to celebrate the French victory in the Battle of Jena, was built starting with the autumn of 1807. The works were directed by Cagnola himself and supervised by Domenico Moglia, Nicola Pirovano, Francesco Peverelli and Bai Gio Battista, under the pressure Read more [...]

The Temple of Victory (Tempio della Vittoria), known also as the Memorial to Fallen Milanese Soldiers (Sacrario dei Caduti Milanesi), is a monument in Milan, located in Largo Agostino Gemelli, near the apse area of the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio.   SHORT HISTORY The monument, dedicated to the memory of the Milanese soldiers who fell during the First World War, was built on a project by the architect Giovanni Muzio, with the collaboration of Alberto Alpago Novello, Tomaso Buzzi, Ottavio Cabiati and Gio Ponti, between 1927 and 1930. According to tradition, the memorial is located on a site where, in ancient times, there was the cemetery of the martyrs of the early Christian era, to which martyred soldiers of the First World War relate. The monument was inaugurated on November 4, 1928, with a great ceremony, in which the Prince Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Aosta and commander of the Italian Third Army during the First World War, read the text of the Victory Bulletin to the huge crowd present, composed mainly of veterans from 1918. Severely damaged during the heavy bombings of Milan from 1943, the monument was rebuilt after the war. It was expanded in 1973 with the large memorial Read more [...]

The Columns of San Lorenzo (Colonne di San Lorenzo) is a late Roman monument in Milan, located in front of the Basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore, near the Medieval Ticinese Gate (Porta Ticinese Medievale). The Columns have a particular emotional meaning for the Milanese, testifying the history of the ancient Mediolanum, capital of the Western Roman Empire between the 3rd and the 5th century.   SHORT HISTORY The Columns of San Lorenzo were brought here in the 4th century, to form an atrium in front of the ancient basilica. The columns came from various Roman buildings dating back to the 2nd or 3rd century, probably from a pagan temple located in the area of today’s Piazza Santa Maria Beltrade. Until 1935, in the current square located between the Columns and the Basilica of San Lorenzo, there were old buildings, which were demolished to give greater coherence and monumentality to the church. The new square was subsequently occupied by tram tracks, which in the 1990s were moved beyond the Columns. In 1937, the bronze statue of the Emperor Constantine was placed in the square, a modern copy of the antique original preserved in Rome.   ARCHITECTURE The Columns of San Lorenzo Read more [...]