Best Renaissance Buildings in Milan, Italy

Casa Fontana-Silvestri

The Casa is one of the few Renaissance buildings surviving in Milan, Italy. The
main structure dates back to the 12th century, but its current form is due to a
thorough modification that were made at the end of the 14th century, in a style that
mixes Renaissance and Gothic elements.

The facade was originally decorated with frescos that scholars credit to Bramante
or Bramantino; most of these painting have disappeared, with just a few remnants
now visible under the cornice. It has also been suggested that Bramante may have
designed the cotto decorations, also on the facade.

Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie

The Santa Maria delle Grazie ("Holy Mary of Grace") is a church and Dominican
convent in Milan, northern Italy, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The church
contains the mural of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, which is in the
refectory of the convent.

Duke of Milan Francesco I Sforza ordered the construction of a Dominican

convent and church at the site of a prior chapel dedicated to the Marian devotion of
St Mary of the Graces. The main architect, Guiniforte Solari, designed the convent
(the Gothic nave), which was completed by 1469. Construction of the church took
decades. Duke Ludovico Sforza decided to have the church serve as the Sforza
family burial site, and rebuilt the cloister and the apse, both completed after 1490.
Ludovico's wife Beatrice was buried in the church in 1497.

The design of the apse of the church has been attributed to Donato Bramante, as
his name is inscribed in a piece of marble in the church vaults delivered in 1494.
However, some dispute that he worked on the church at all. According to one
source, in 1492-1497 Bramante worked on the crossing and the dome as well the
transept apses and the coir with apse; this source also attributes a plan and section
of the building to Bramante. Some documents mention the name Amadeo, likely
Giovanni Antonio Amadeo. There are similarities between this church and
Amadeo's design for Santa Maria alla Fontana.
In 1543, the Titian altarpiece depicting Christ receiving the crown of thorns was
installed in the Chapel of the Holy Crown, located on the right of the nave. The
painting, looted by French troops in 1797, is now in the Louvre. This chapel is
frescoed with Stories of the Passion by Gaudenzio Ferrari. In the small cloister
adjacent to the tribune near the door that leads to the sacristy is a fresco by
Bramantino. The church also contained frescoes depicting the Resurrection and
Passion by Bernardo Zenale.

Castello Sforzesco

The Castello is a medieval fortification located in Milan, northern Italy. It was built
in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, on the remnants of a 14th-
century fortification. Later renovated and enlarged, in the 16th and 17th centuries it
was one of the largest citadels in Europe. Extensively rebuilt by Luca Beltrami in
1891-1905, it now houses several of the city's museums and art collections.

The original construction was ordered by Galeazzo II Visconti, a local nobleman,

in 1358-c. 1370; this castle was known as the Castello di Porta Giova (or Porta
Zubia), from the name of a gate in walls located nearby. It was built in the same
area of the ancient roman fortification of Castrum Portae Jovis, which served as
castra pretoria when the city was the capital of the Roman Empire. It was enlarged
by Galeazzo's successors, Gian Galeazzo, Giovanni Maria and Filippo Maria
Visconti, until it became a square-plan castle with 200 m-long sides, four towers at
the corners and up to 7-metre-thick (23 ft) walls. The castle was the main residence
in the city of its Visconti lords, and was destroyed by the short-lived Golden
Ambrosian Republic which ousted them in 1447.

In 1450, Francesco Sforza, once he had shattered the republicans, began

reconstruction of the castle to turn it into his princely residence. In 1452 he hired
the sculptor and architect Filarete to design and decorate the central tower, which
is still known as the Torre del Filarete. After Francesco's death, the construction
was continued by his son Galeazzo Maria, under the architect Benedetto Ferrini.
The decoration was executed by local painters. In 1476, during the regency of
Bona of Savoy, the tower bearing her name was built.

In 1494 Ludovico Sforza became lord of Milan, and called on numerous artists to
decorate the castle. These include Leonardo da Vinci (who frescoed several rooms,
in collaboration with Bernardino Zenale and Bernardino Butinone) and Bramante,
who painted frescoes in the Sala del Tesoro; the Sala della Balla was decorated
with Francesco Sforza's deeds. Around 1498, Leonardo worked at the ceiling of the
Sala delle Asse, painting decorations of vegetable motifs. In the following years,
however, the castle was damaged by assaults from Italian, French and German
troops; a bastion, known as tenaglia, was added, perhaps designed by Cesare
Cesariano. After the French victory in the Battle of Marignano in 1515, the
defeated Maximilian Sforza, his Swiss mercenaries, and the cardinal-bishop of
Sion retreated into the castle. However, King Francis I of France followed them
into Milan, and his sappers placed mines under the castle's foundations, whereupon
the defenders capitulated. In 1521, in a period in which it was used as a weapons
depot, the Torre del Filarete exploded. When Francesco II Sforza returned briefly
to power in Milan, he had the fortress restored and enlarged, and a part of it
adapted as residence for his wife, Christina of Denmark.

Under the Spanish domination which followed, the castle became a citadel, as the
governor's seat was moved to the Ducal Palace (1535). Its garrison varied from
1,000 to 3,000 men, led by a Spanish castellan. In 1550 works began to adapt the
castle to modern fortification style, as a hexagonal (originally pentagonal) star fort,
following the addition of 12 bastions. The external fortifications reached 3 km in
length and covered an area of 25.9 hectares. The castle also remained in use as a
fort after the Spaniards were replaced by the Austrians in Lombardy.

Most of the outer fortifications were demolished during the period of Napoleonic
rule in Milan under the Cisalpine Republic. The semi-circular Piazza Castello was
constructed around the city side of the castle, surrounded by a radial street layout
of new urban blocks bounded by the Foro Buonoparte. The area on the "country"
side of the castle was laid out as a 700-by-700-metre (2,300 by 2,300 ft) square
parade ground known as Piazza d'Armi.

After the unification of Italy in the 19th century, the castle was transferred from
military use to the city of Milan. Parco Sempione, one of the largest parks in the
city, was created on the former parade grounds.

The government of Milan undertook restoration works, directed by Luca Beltrami.

The Via Dante was cut through the medieval street layout in the 1880s to provide a
direct promenade between the castle and the Duomo on an axis with the main gate.
Between 1900 and 1905 the Torre del Filarete was rebuilt, on the basis of 16th-
century drawings, as a monument to King Umberto I.

Villa Simonetta
The Villa was built in the late 15th century for Gualtiero Bescape, chancellor of
Ludovico il Moro. The villa was rebuilt in 1547 by Domenico Giunti by order of
the Spanish governor Ferrante Gonzaga.

It is the first example of suburban villa outside Milan (today inside Milan)
designed in a typical Renaissance style. It has porticos on the three floors. In 1555
it became the villa of Simonetta family.

San Carlo al Lazzaretto

The San Carlo al Lazzaretto is a small Renaissance style octagonal church now in
largo Bellintani Fra Paolo, number 1 in the quartiere Porta Venezia of Milan. It is
located about three blocks northwest of the Porta Venezia. Its present situation,
amidst crowded 19th and 20th century apartment blocks, has little relationship to
its original placement, in the central park of a massive rectangular cloister-like
15th-century leprosarium (Lazaretto). The church, once called Tempietto di Santa
Maria della Sanità or San Carlino, escaped the late-nineteenth century demolition
of the Lazzaretto.

The Lazzaretto of Milan was a quadrangle with 400 yard long sides, designed by
Lazzaro Palazzi in the late 15th century. It was located outside the city walls and
Porta Orientale. In the center an altar had been placed in the open ground. After the
Lazzaretto was used for housing the ill during the plague epidemic of 1576, the
archbishop Carlo Borromeo commissioned a new church from Pellegrino Tibaldi.
Construction from 1558 to 1592, erected this centralized church with open
circumferential arches which allowed the ill to see services from all corners of the
surrounding porticos. After the French occupation of the Duchy, the lazzaretto was
used as barracks. During the Cisalpine Republic, the architect Giuseppe Piermarini
was commissioned to transform the church into a secular Temple of the Nation
(Tempio della Patria). Piermarini Demolished the cupola, and walled the sides, but
reconstruction soon ceased. During the 19th century, the central fields of the
Lazzaretto were used for agriculture, and the surrounding cloister was used by
peasants. In the late 19th century, the Lazaretto buildings were nearly entirely
demolished, and the church was reconsecrated by 1884, with a new dome and an
added facade portico.