The arc of the peace in Milan The arc of the peace is a monument in Milan, situated in the center of the vast area of Sempione plaza. You/he/she was begun in 1807 by Luigi Cagnola under the push of the commune of Milan and Napoleone. The work was by now twos bystanders when, with the fall of the Italic Kingdom, the project was abandoned. Only in 1826 the riedificazione of the building was taken back under the emperor asburgico Francis I of Austria, that devoted him/it to the peace that had gathered the different European powers in 1815. After the death of Luigi Cagnola, happened in 1833, the jobs passed in the hands of Londonio and Pavelli, that completed him/it in 1838, in time because to the ceremony of inauguration it participated Ferdinando I, Emperor of Austria and king of Lombardo-Veneto. June 8 th 1859, four days after the victory of Magenta, they made you their triumphal entry in Milan Napoleone III and Vittorio Emanuele, among the acclamations of the crowd.

The Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan The Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio (St. Ambrose) is a church in Milan, northern Italy. One of the most ancient churches in Italy, it was built by Bishop Ambrose in 379-386, in an area where numerous martyrs of the Roman persecutions had been buried. The first name of the church was in fact Basilica Martyrum. In the following centuries the edifice underwent several restorations and partial reconstructions, assuming the current appearance in 1099, when it was rebuilt in Romanesque architecture. The basilica plan of the original edifice was maintained, with an apse and two aisles, all with apses, and a portico with elegant archs supported by semicolumns and pilasters preceding the entrance. The latter was used to house the disciples (catecumeni) coming to Mass to receive baptism (this habit disappeared in the early 11th century). The flat appearance of the hut-like façade is typical of Lombard medieval architecture. It has two loggias, the lower one with three arcades of equal dimensions joining the portico. The upper loggia has five arcades of different height that follow the ceiling. It is used by the bishop of Milan to bless the people attending outside. The basilica has two bell towers. The right one, called dei Monaci ("of the Monks"), is from the 7th century and has a severe appearance. The left and higher one belongs to 1144, the last two floors added in 1889. The interior of the basilica has the same size as the external portico. Notable is the apse mosaic, portraing the Christ pantokrator and dating from the early 13th century.

is a castle in Milan, Italy that now houses an art gallery. The original construction on the site began in the 14th century. In 1450, Francesco Sforza began reconstruction of the castle, and it was further modified by later generations. It currently houses an art collection which includes Michelangelo's last sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà, Andrea Mantegna's Trivulzio Madonna and Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Trivulzianus manuscript.

The Last Supper in Milan The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo or L'Ultima Cena) is a 15th century mural painting in Milan created by Leonardo da Vinci for his patron Duke Ludovico Sforza and his duchess, Beatrice d'Este. It represents the scene of The Last Supper from the final days of Jesus as narrated in the Gospel of John 01:21, when Jesus announces that one of his twelve disciples would betray him. The painting is one of the most well known and valued in the world; unlike many other valuable paintings, however, it has never been privately owned because it cannot be moved easily.

The plan of Milan, with streets either radiating from the Duomo or circling it, reveals the Duomo occupies the most center site in Roman Mediolanum, that of the public basilica facing the forum. Saint Ambrose's 'New Basilica' was built on this site at the beginning of the 5th century, with an adjoining basilica added in 836. When fire damaged both buildings in 1075, they were rebuilt as the Duomo. [edit] The beginning In 1386 the archbishop, Antonio da Saluzzo, began construction in a rayonnant Late Gothic style more typically French than Italian. Construction coincided with the accession to power in Milan of the archbishop's cousin Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and was meant as a reward to the noble and working classes which had been suppressed by his tyrannical Visconti predecessor Barnabò. Before actual work began, three main buildings were demolished: the palace of the Archbishop, the Ordinari Palace and the Baptistry of 'St. Stephen at the Spring', while the old church of Sta. Maria Maggiore was exploited as a stone quarry. Enthusiasm for the immense new building soon spread among the population, and the shrewd Gian Galeazzo, together with his cousin the archbishop, collected large donations for the work-in-progress. The construction program was strictly regulated under the "Fabbrica del Duomo", which had 300 employees led by first chief engineer Simone da Orsenigo. Galeazzo gave the Fabbrica exclusive use of the marble from the Candoglia quarry and exempted it from taxes. In 1389 a French chief engineer, Nicolas de Bonaventure, was appointed, adding to the church its strong Gothic imprint. Ten years later another French architect, Jean Mignot, was called from Paris to judge and improve upon the work done, as the masons needed new technical aid to lift stones to an unprecedented height. Mignot declared all the work done up till then as in pericolo di ruina ("peril of ruin"), as it had been done sine scienzia ("without science"). In the following years Mignot's forecasts proved untrue, but anyway they spurred Galeazzo's engineers to improve their instruments and techniques. Work proceeded quickly, and at the death of Gian Galeazzo in 1402, almost half the cathedral was complete. Construction, however, stalled almost totally until 1480, due to lack of money and ideas: the most notable works of this period were the tombs of Marco Carelli and Pope Martin V (1424) and the windows of the apse (1470s), of which those extant portray St. John the Evangelist, by Cristoforo de' Mottis, and Saint Eligius and San John of Damascus, both by Niccolò da Varallo. In 1452, under Francesco Sforza, the nave and the aisles were completed up to the sixth bay. In 1500-1510, under Lodovico Sforza, the octagonal cupola was completed, and decorated in the interior with four series of fifteen statues each, portraying saints, prophets, sibyls and other characters of the Bible. The exterior long remained without any decoration, except for the Guglietto dell'Amadeo ("Amadeo's Little Spire"), constructed 1507-1510. This is a Renaissance masterwork which nevertheless harmonized well with the general Gothic appearance of the church.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a covered double arcade (two arcades intersecting in an octagon) sited on the northern side of the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, connecting to the Piazza della Scala. Named after Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of united Italy, it was originally designed in 1861 and built by Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877. The street is covered over by an arching glass and steel roof, a popular design for nineteenth-century shopping malls or "arcades" such as the Burlington Arcade, London, which was the prototype for larger glazed shopping arcades, beginning with the Saint-Hubert Gallery in Brussels (opened 1847) and the Passazh in St Petersburg, (opened 1848) and including the Galleria Umberto in Naples (opened 1890). The central point is topped with a glass dome. The Milanese Galleria was larger in scale than its predecessors and was an important step in the evolution of the modern shopping mall. It has inspired the use of the term galleria for many other shopping arcades and malls. The Galleria connects two of Milan's most famous landmarks: The Duomo and the Teatro Alla Scala. More than 120 years after its inauguration, the four-story arcade includes elegant shops selling most things from haute couture to books, as well as restaurants, cafés and bars. Directly connected to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is Milan's ultra-luxurious Park Hyatt hotel, offering the city's most luxurious (and most expensive) rooms and facilities.

The Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is an art collection in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings, an outgrowth of the cultural program of the Accademia di Belle Arti ("Academy of Fine Arts" or Accademia di Brera), which shares the site in the Palazzo Brera. The Palazzo Brera owes its name to the Germanic braida, indicating a grassy opening in the city structure: compare the Bra of Verona. The convent on the site passed to the Jesuits (1572), then underwent a radical rebuilding by Francesco Maria Richini (1627–28). When the Jesuits were disbanded in 1773, the palazzo remained the seat of the astronomical Observatory and the library founded by the Jesuits. In 1774 were added the herbarium of the new botanical garden. The buildings were extended to designs by Giuseppe Piermarini, who was appointed professor in the Academy when it was formally founded in 1776, with Giuseppe Parini as dean. Piermarini taught at the Academy for 20 years, while he was controller of the city's urbanistic projects, like the public gardens (1787–1788) and piazza Fontana, (1780—1782) For the better teaching of architecture, sculpture and the other arts, the Academy initiated by Parini was provided with a collection of casts after the Antique, an essential for inculcating a refined Neoclassicism in the students. Under Parini's successors, the abate Carlo Bianconi (1778–1802) and the genial scholarly artist Giuseppe Bossi (1802–1807), the Academy acquired the first paintings of its pinacoteca during the reassignment of works of Italian art that characterized the Napoleonic era. Raphael's Sposalizio (the Marriage of the Virgin) was the key painting of the early collection, and the Academy increased its cultural scope by taking on associates across the First French Empire: David, Pietro Benvenuti, Vincenzo Camuccini, Canova, Thorvaldsen and the archaeologist Ennio Quirino Visconti. In 1805, under Bossi's direction, the series of annual exhibitions was initiated with a system of prizes, a counterpart of the Paris Salons, which served to identify Milan as the cultural capital for contemporary painting in Italy through the 19th century. The Academy's artistic committee, the Commissione di Ornato exercised a controlling influence on public monuments, a precursor of today's Sopraintendenze delle Belle Arti. The Romantic era witnessed the triumph of academic history painting, guided at the Academy by Francesco Hayez, and the introduction of the landscape as an acceptable academic genre, inspired by Massimo D'Azeglio and Giuseppe Bisi, while the Academy moved towards becoming an institution for teaching the history of art. Thus in 1882 the Paintings Gallery was separated from the Academy. From 1891 the exhibitions were reduced to triennial events, and architectural projects developed their autonomous course. During the period of the avant-garde when Modernism was becoming established, the director of the Academy Camillo Boito had as pupil Luca Beltrami, and Cesare Tallone taught Carlo Carrà and Achille Funi.

The Colonne di San Lorenzo in Milan The Colonne di San Lorenzo is the best-known Roman ruin in Milan. It is located in front of the Basilica of San Lorenzo. It is a square with a row of columns on either side, which were taken from a temple or public bath house dating from the 2nd century. The columns were moved to their current location sometime in the 4th century. South of the columns, one of the medieval gates of the city is still in place, with Roman marbles in it. Inscription of Lucius Verus.Up until 1935, the space between the church and columns was entirely occupied by old houses abutting onto the façade of the church itself. Indeed, the church complex was fully surrounded by old houses. Despite the plans to conserve this ancient urban fabric, the renovations led to the demolition of the old houses and the isolation of the monument on the front side. Following bombing during World War II, the church complex became isolated also on the rear side, where a fenced urban park (which is called Basilicas Park or Parco delle Basiliche in Italian) now stands, allowing popular views of the complex and of another church nearby.

The traces of the idea to make to reach Milan the result to the sea denied by the nature lose him in the chronicles of times of very anterior to the planning and realization of the first shipping. Since the antiquity many gods numerous courses of water that surround the city had suffered deviations to be conducted in city but none of the rivers or streams it had the enough dimensions to become this of which the city felt the need. Is the Seveso, that crossed the city for then to end in the Lambro, is the Lura (called Nirone in his/her inferior line) that it flowed to west in Milan they were courses of water of modest dimensions, the Olona also being distant from the center, in the medioevo in his/her progress was diverted for meeting in the Nirone, assuming the name of Vetere feeding the pit that surrounded the medieval boundaries of the city. During the time the continuous requirement of water from the florid economy of the city and the demands of irrigation fecerò yes that it was begun to plan the union of the Ticino with the Adda. The defensive demands had already brought to the construction of two defensive ditches, called it was inside: the first one was that fed by the Seveso and it flowed along the actual streets Montenapoleone, Durini, Verziere, Of the Hours, Pecorari, From Cernobbio, Maddalena, Crows, Press crossed street Circus, it coasted along street Hood, street Nirone, Raced Magenta, Street St. Giovanni on the Wall, Wide Cairoli, Street Cusani, Of the bear, Mountain of Pity, to throw himself/herself/themselves in the Vettabbia between Porta Lodovica and Door Ticinese. the second inside pit, called Inside Shipping, you/he/she was built in 1155 and immediately destroyed in 1158 to work of the Barbarossa but quickly reconstructed for being always destroyed later again four years by the Barbarossa. The layout of the ditch reconstructed in 1167 corresponds Fatebenefratelli to the actual streets, Senate, St. Damiano, Viscounts of Modrone, Francis Sforza, Saint Sofias, Grind some Weapons, De Amicis, Carducci, Castle Plaza and street Pontaccio. The construction of the Great Shipping started in 1179, the first line limited him to connect the Ticino with Gaggiano in 1187 it reached to Trezzano and in 1209 Milan near the church of Sant'Eustorgio. It goes up again to 1386 the laying of the first stone of the Cathedral to which Gian Galeazzo Viscounts you/he/she had destined the marbles drawn by the Most greater Lake, it was necessary therefore to create a connection between the Great Shipping and the inside Pit to allow the boats to reach the little pond of Saint Stephen (near the Most greater hospital). You set the problem of the overcoming of the gradient among the two courses of water, the mechanism of the basin it was invented realized in the channel of connection that was found at the street it Runs aground. The first used mechanism was very rudimentary and expensive, he treated in practice to build every time a wall of lumber to stern of the boats to allow their raising up to the level of the inside pit, the wall you/he/she was built and demolished to every passage of boat with some incompatible times with the application of material from the yard of the Cathedral. You/he/she was studied therefore and envoy to point the mechanism of the permanent basin, the first one was at the street it Runs aground and subsequently a system of basins was built. The solution of the problem of the gradients made to look with optimism at the realization of new enterprises, a direct channel to Pavia and the union with the Adda.

The Duke of Milan Francesco I Sforza ordered to build a Dominican convent and a church in the place where a small chapel dedicated to St. Mary of the Graces was. Bramante's apse.The main architect was Guiniforte Solari, the convent was completed by 1469 while the church took more time. The new duke Ludovico Sforza decided to have the church as the Sforza family burial place and rebuild the cloyster and the apse which were completed after 1490. Ludovico's wife Beatrice was buried in the church in 1497. The apse of the church is widely believed to be by Donato Bramante. Howevere there's no real evidence of the fact, but that Bramante lived in Milan at the time and he is once quoted in the acts of the church (a marble delivery in 1494).

The Teatro alla Scala of Milan The Teatro alla Scala (or La Scala, as it is known), in Milan, Italy, is one of the world's most famous opera houses. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778, under the name Nuovo Regio Ducal Teatro alla Scala with Salieri's Europa riconosciuta. A fire destroyed the previous theatre, the ancient Teatro Ducale, on 25 February 1776, after a carnival gala. A group of ninety wealthy Milanese, who owned palchi (private boxes) in the theater, wrote to Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria asking for a new theatre and a provisional one to be used while completing the new one. The neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini produced an initial design but it was rejected by Count Firmian (an Austrian governor). A second plan was accepted in 1776 by Empress Maria Theresa. The new theatre was built on the former location of the church of Santa Maria della Scala, from which the theatre gets its name. The church was deconsecrated and demolished, and over a period of two years the theater was completed by Pietro Marliani, Pietro Nosetti and Antonio and Giuseppe Fe. This theatre had a total over 3,000 seats organized into 678 pit-stalls, arranged in six tiers of boxes above which is the 'loggione' or two galleries. Now the stage is one of the largest in Italy (16.15m d x 20.4m w x 26m h. Building expenses were covered by the sale of palchi, which were lavishly decorated by their owners, impressing observers such as Stendhal. La Scala (as it soon became to be known) soon became the preeminent meeting place for noble and wealthy Milanese people. In the tradition of the times, the platea (the main floor) had no chairs and spectators watched the shows standing up. The orchestra was in full sight, as the golfo mistico (orchestra pit) had not yet been built. Above the boxes, La Scala has always had a gallery where the less wealthy can watch the performances. It is called the loggione. The loggione is typically crowded with the most critical opera aficionados, who can be ecstatic or merciless towards singers' perceived successes or failures. La Scala's loggione is considered a baptism of fire in the opera world, and fiascos are long remembered. One recent incident occurred in 2006 when tenor Roberto Alagna was booed off-stage during his performance, forcing a non-wardrobed understudy to replace him mid-concert. As with most of the theaters at that time, La Scala was also a casino, with gamblers sitting in the foyer. La Scala was originally illuminated with eighty-four oil lamps mounted on the palcoscenico and another thousand in the rest of theater. To prevent the risks of fire, several rooms were filled with hundreds of water buckets. In time, oil lamps were replaced by gas lamps, these in turn were replaced by electric lights in 1883. The original structure was renovated in 1907, when it was given its current layout with 2,800 seats. In 1943, during WWII, La Scala was severely damaged by bombing. It was rebuilt and reopened on May 11, 1946, with a memorable concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini, with a soprano solo by Renata Tebaldi, which created a sensation. La Scala hosted the prima (first production) of many famous operas, and had a special relationship with Giuseppe Verdi. For several years, however, Verdi did not allow his work to be played here, as some of his music had been modified (he said "corrupted") by the orchestra. This dispute originated in a disagreement over the production of his Giovanna d'Arco in 1845; however the composer later conducted his Requiem there on May 25, 1874, and in 1886 announced that La Scala would host the premiere of his opera Otello.[1] The premiere of his last opera, Falstaff was also given in the theatre. La Scala's season traditionally opens on 7 December, Saint Ambrose's Day, Milan's patron saint. All performances must end before midnight; long operas start earlier in the evening if need be. Ticketholders are not allowed to enter after the performance has begun. No exceptions are made, as Richard Burton once discovered. The La Scala Museum (Museo Teatrale alla Scala), accessible from the theatre's foyer and a part of the house, contains an extraordinary collection of paintings, drafts, statues, costumes, and other documents regarding opera and La Scala's history. La Scala also hosts the Accademia d’Arti e Mestieri dello Spettacolo (Academy for the Performing Arts). Its goal is to train a new generation of young musicians, technical staff, and dancers (at the Scuola di Ballo del Teatro alla Scala, one of the Academy's divisions).

The university of Milan was founded on 30th of September, 1923, when the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the Milan Accademia, active since 1861, was joined with the Istituti Clinici di Perfezionamento, founded by Luigi Mangiagalli in 1906. In June 1998, a "Second University of Milan" was founded at Bicocca, see University of Milan Bicocca.