It stands at the end of Via della Passione like a stage set, and it is the second largest church in Milan after the Duomo, though nobody would say so. Daniele Birago, archbishop of Mytilene, wanted it at the end of the fifteenth century, putting almost his whole fortune into it and entrusting it to the Lateran canons; it was born on a central plan, with an octagonal lantern tower and eight chapels around it, like the Marian sanctuaries of Lombardy, and with the Birago mausoleum in the middle. Then came Saint Charles Borromeo, who wanted long churches for preaching, and from 1573 Martino Bassi attached the three naves in front. In the convent alongside, since the nineteenth century, is the Milan Conservatory: the students rehearse and the music comes through the wall.
What to see
The octagonal lantern tower, inside and out: outside with half-columns in two orders, niches and terracotta; inside with light falling from above onto the crossing, and it is the oldest and finest part. The Baroque façade with Giuseppe Rusnati's reliefs of the Passion, left unfinished at the top. And the paintings: the church is a gallery of the Lombard sixteenth century, with panels by Gaudenzio Ferrari, Bernardino Luini, and Ambrogio da Fossano known as Bergognone, who left here the series of Doctors of the Church and the Deposition.
In the chapel of the Holy Nail, Bergognone's Christ at the Column and Last Supper; in the presbytery, the carved wooden choir of the sixteenth century and the two organs with painted shutters, one of them among the oldest in Milan still playable. In the sacristy, the inlaid cupboards and the canvases; and in a side chapel the mausoleum of the Birago brothers, moved from the centre of the tribune where it first stood. In the convent cloister, today the Conservatory's, you go in when there are concerts.
Visiting
The church is on Via Conservatorio, at the end of Via della Passione, ten minutes from the Duomo towards Porta Vittoria, San Babila metro; free entry with church hours and a lunch closure. Half an hour. It often hosts organ concerts and Conservatory rehearsals: if you hear music as you go in, stay.
Our editors' tip
Stand under the lantern tower, at the exact centre of the crossing, and look up: from there you understand that this was a round church, and that the naves came later, by order of a saint who wanted people seated and listening. Then look for Bergognone: his Doctors of the Church have the faces of men who really read, and in Milan there is nowhere you see so many together.