Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The cavernous interior, lit by brilliant stained-glass windows, seats 40,000 but
is unusually spartan and serene, divided into five aisles by a forest of 52 columns.
The poet Shelley used to sit and read Dante amid monuments that include a grue-
somely graphic
statue
of
St. Bartholomew Flayed
5
and the tombs of Giacomo
de Medici, two Visconti, and many cardinals and archbishops. Another British
visitor, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, rhapsodized about the view of the Alps from the
roof
555
9
(elevators on the
church's exterior northeast corner for
€
6; stairs on the exterior north side
for
€
4; Nov 14-Feb 13 daily
9am-5pm, Feb 14-Apr 30 and Oct
10-Nov 13 daily 9am-6pm, May 1-Oct
9 daily 9am-6:30pm),
where you get
to wander amid the Gothic pinnacles,
saintly statues, and flying buttresses.
You are joined high above Milan by
the spire-top gold statue of
Madonnina
(the little Madonna), the
city's beloved protectress.
Back on terra firma, the cathedral's
crypt
(
€
1.55; daily 9am-noon and
2:30-6pm)
contains the remains of San Carlo Borromeo, one of the early cardi-
nals of Milan and a member of the noble family that still owns much of the prime
real estate around Lake Maggiore (later in this chapter). A far more interesting
descent is the one down the staircase to the right of the main entrance, to the
Battistero Paleocristiano S. Giovanni alle Fonti
(
€
1.50; Tues-Sun
9:45am-12:45pm and 2-5:45pm),
the ruins of a 4th-century baptistery believed
to be where St. Ambrose baptized St. Augustine.
The Duomo houses many of its treasures across the piazza from the right
transept in a wing of the Palazzo Reale devoted to
Museo del Duomo
(Piazza del
Duomo, 14;
%
02-860358;
€
6; daily 10am-1:15pm and 3-6pm).
Among the
legions of statuary saints are a significant painting,
Tintoretto's
Christ at the
Temple,
and some intriguing displays chronicling the construction of the cathedral.
The best place from which to admire the Duomo facade is an outdoor table at
Caffè della Zucca, the bar that invented Italy's consummate aperitif, Campari-
soda. This genteel cafe lies at the entrance to the elegant
Galleria Vittorio
Emanuele II
“
How glorious that Cathedral is!
Worthy almost of standing face to
face with the snow Alps; and itself a
sort of snow dream by an artist archi-
tect, taken asleep on a glacier.
”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in a
letter from 1851
55
, Milan's late-19th-century version of a mall. This wonderful
steel-and-glass-covered, cross-shaped arcade is the prototype of the enclosed shop-
ping malls that were to become the hallmark of 20th-century consumerism—
though it's safe to say that none of the imitators have come close to matching the
Galleria for style and flair. The designer of this urban marvel, Giuseppe Mengoni,
didn't live to see the Milanese embrace his creation: He tripped and fell from a
A Duomo Combo
Catch the elevator to the Duomo's roof and see the cathedral museum together
with a
€
8 Combination Ticket.
