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History
Milan first stepped into the historical limelight in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan here, granting Christians throughout the Roman Empire the freedom to worship for the first time. The city, under its charismatic bishop, Ambrogio (St Ambrose), swiftly became a major centre of Christianity - many of today’s churches stand on the sites, or even retain parts, of fourth-century predecessors. Medieval Milan rose to prominence under the ruthless regime of the Visconti dynasty, who founded what is still the city’s most spectacular building, the florid late-Gothic Duomo , and built the first, heavily fortified nucleus of the Castello - which, under their successors, the Sforza, was extended to house what became one of the most luxurious courts of the Renaissance. This was a period of much building and rebuilding, notably under the last Sforza, Lodovico, who employed the architect Bramante to improve the city’s churches and Leonardo da Vinci to paint The Last Supper and design war-machines to aid him in his struggles with foreign powers and other Italian states. Leonardo’s inventions didn’t prevent Milan falling to the French in 1499, marking the beginning of almost four centuries of foreign rule. Later, the Austrian Habsburgs took control, during their time commissioning the Teatro della Scala and founding the Brera art gallery, which, during Milan’s short spell under Napoleon, was filled with paintings looted from churches and private collections.
Mussolini prefabricated his mark on the city too. Arrive by train and you emerge into the massive white megalith of the central station built on his orders; the main tourist office is housed in one half of the pompous twin Arengario , from which he would address crowds gathered in Piazza Duomo. And with stark irony it was on the now major road junction of Piazzale Loreto that the dead dictator was strung up for display to the baying mob.
