Duomo di Milano

The Metropolitan City of Milan is a metropolitan city in the Lombardy region, Italy. Today it’s the capital of  Lombardy. Milan was an ancient city. In 222 B.C. the city was conquered by Romans and it was annexed to the Roman Empire, getting the name of Mediolanum.

Duomo occupied the most important site in the ancient Roman city of Mediolanum. A 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.

*Additional info:  (After 313 A.D., the year of the Edict of Milan towards Christianity issued by Constantine the Great, many churches were built and the first bishop, St Ambrose, was appointed. Ambrogio was such an influential person that the church became the Ambrosian Church (7 December is a holiday to honour Sant’Ambrogio, the Milan’s patron). Although Milan became less important as the Roman Empire declined. The city suffered the invasion of Lombards who first sacked (539 A.D.) and then conquered it in 569 A.D. . The capital of the Roman–Barbaric kingdom of the Longobards (569-774 – from whom the region Lombardy takes its name) was instead Pavia. Milan’s rebirth just began with Carolingian rule in the 8th century.)

In 1386 the archbishop, Antonio da Saluzzo, began the new project in a Rayonnant Late Gothic style. And the work proceeded for generations.

Some uncarved blocks remain to be turned into sculpture. Gothic construction on the rest of the Duomo was largely complete in the 1880s.

Milan’s Duomo is the third largest Catholic Cathedral in the world after Seville Cathedral and St. John Divine in NYC.