Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio

The Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio was built to celebrate the city's patron saint, whose feast day is celebrated every year on 7 December.
Inside the Basilica are precious artefacts and works of art documenting some 1600 years of history of the city of Milan.
Built in 386 A.D. at the behest of Ambrose, then bishop of the city, it owes its current name to the latter's burial in the basilica in 387 A.D.

The second most important place of worship in the city, Sant'Ambrogio is also one of the oldest churches, boasting a Paleochristian foundation, later remodelled until the Romanesque period.

In the 9th century Bishop Angilberto had the apse built, then two centuries later in the 11th century it was completely redesigned. Entrusted to the Benedictines until 1497, it then passed to the Cistercians, when the Basilica met the hand of Donato Bramante.
The famous architect was called in to arrange the monastery and the internal chapels and to design the rectory.
After having survived the 17th century, a century of great economic crisis in Italy, the Basilica experienced a forced pause in its worship activities due to the Napoleonic wars and the consequent wave of secularism that forced the closure of many places of worship. It was therefore necessary to wait for the Restoration to return to normal religious practices.

Finally, in the 20th century, the Basilica suffered the ravages of bombing, to the point of being partially destroyed in 1943. Rebuilt in the 1950s, it then entered modern history as one of the symbols of the city of Milan.