Milan Cathedral

The church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro was built in the 15th century, designed according to new Renaissance forms imported into the duchy by Donato Bramante. The church is famous for housing the ‘fake Bramante chorus’, a masterpiece of Italian Renaissance perspective painting.

In 1268, a small church was built. Before that, there was only a graveyard and a room were exhumed bones were gathered. In 1642, the bell tower of the Basilica di Santo Stefano collapsed and demolished the church and the ossuary. It was immediately rebuilt and has remained the same until today. The bones that are displayed in the ossuary are from local poor people. Most of them died of natural causes in the old Brolo hospital, but there are also skulls of people who died by violence or criminals who were beheaded.

The church of Sant'Antonio Abate was built in the 13th century on the site of a 4th-century temple. The present church, however, is a reconstruction from the Mannerist period (1582). The church has a beautiful 15th-century bell tower, restored by Luca Beltrami, and a terracotta cloister, dating from the early 16th century. In 1577 it was entrusted to the Theatines. The Theatines fitted out the cloisters and commissioned Dionigi Campazzo, one of the architects of the Ca' Granda, to rebuild the church in the Counter-Reformation style. A second decorative campaign began in the third decade of the 17th century.