THE CITY OF MILANO

 

Milan, in English, is as of 2014, the largest city in population in Italy with Naples being the second, and is the capital of the region of Lombardy. The city has a long history as the other communities of the Peninsula.

Milan is the main industrial, commercial, and financial center of the country. It hosts the Borsa Italiana (the equivalent of Wall Street). It has the third largest economy after London and Paris. It is also a capital of fashion. Some of its land marks are: the Milan Cathedral—Il Duomo di Santa Maria Nascente, simply known as Il Duomo, which is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and the fifth largest cathedral worldwide. Its construction began in 1386, of which many say is yet incomplete.  The fifteenth century Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie containing the paintings of Da Vinci, such as the Last Supper; La Scala Opera House, the Sforza Castle, the famous glass roofed shopping arcade―The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, and the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio. These are only a few of the sites of the city which began as a community sometime in 400 BC. Two hundred years later the Romans conquered the area and gave it the name of Mediolanum, from which the name Milan derived.

When Caesar Augustus (Gaius Octavius), Julius Caesar’s grandnephew came into power, he made Milan a capital, and named the region Transpadana. In the third century AD it became the capital of the western empire. By this time Christianity had spread throughout the Mediterranean area and became imbedded in Milan. Many of the churches today trace their origins of beginning to this period. The city’s first bishop, by popular acclaim, was Aurelius Ambrosius, St. Ambrose, in 340 AD. He became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the fourth century. He is the patron saint of the city.

When the Roman Empire went into decline, a large Germanic tribe, the Lombards, invaded and took control of the city and much of Italy. Today, as mentioned, the region of which Milan is the capital is Lombardia, named after the Lombards. The Italians, called them  Longobardi, meaning, long beards. Below are pictures of exterior and interior of Il Duomo.