It was a hot day in Milan, and we were walking back to the apartment with our friends after a three-hour walking tour followed by a lunch of gelato and pizza. We passed by an open doorway that, from the sidewalk, looked much like most of the other doors on the street.
Corie screeched to a halt. Through a narrow view of the interior, spotted at just the right angle through a small wooden vestibule, she saw something wonderful.
Little did we know, we had passed by the San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore, an Italian Renaissance church and Benedictine convent. A small sign at the doorway read “Touring Club Italiano,” and in our heat-induced, gelato-fueled exhaustion, we mistakenly thought the doorway led to a private club. That didn’t stop Corie from asking an older man at the front door if she could look inside. From the man’s perspective, it was probably a silly question since the building is open to the public with free admission.
Entering what was the church’s public sanctuary, one is greeted with a magnificent display of 16th-century Milanese paintings and frescoes covering the ceiling and small chapels lining the walls, an art historian’s dream.
An ornate wall separates the public sanctuary from the convent hall where the cloistered nuns would attend mass.
The church was associated with the largest and oldest Benedictine convent in the city, one whose nuns came from Milan’s noble families, who used their wealth to commission the artwork, described by some as “Milan’s Sistine Chapel.” Along with Biblical scenes, much of the artwork depicts the church’s prominent benefactors.
Very little is known about painter responsible for much of the building’s frescoes, Bernardino Luini. Historians aren’t certain of when he was born, but his earliest known surviving painting is a 1512 fresco in at a monastery southeast of Milan. Luini was influenced by his contemporaries in the region, including Leonardo da Vinci.
As we slowly wandered through the convent hall, strains of a Vivaldi concerto quietly echoed through the room, adding to the feeling that this was a special place. It would take many hours to adequately explore the nuanced artwork in the public and convent halls, but even a quick tour, taking in the building’s interior, is well worth the stop.
As one takes in the richness, depth and detail of the paintings and frescoes, it’s hard to believe their beauty might have been lost to time. Humidity from a nearby underground river threatened the work, requiring several restoration projects after the late 1700s.
In 1964, organizers saved the most threatened frescoes, detaching them from the structure then remounting them. In 1984, an anonymous donation allowed for the restoration of the remaining frescoes.
We left San Maurizio with a sense of gratitude that a brief glance could reveal such a memorable experience.
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