Milan at Christmas - The art and architecture of Italy's northern capital

The Duchy of Milan – approximately coterminous with modern Lombardy – was the wealthiest and most powerful territory in medieval and Renaissance Italy, and its eponymous metropolis was possibly the largest city in Europe. A telling detail is that the greatest genius of his time, Leonardo da Vinci, chose to spend much of his working life in Milan rather than in other Italian cities that are now more commonly associated with artistic and intellectual endeavour.  

The ruling dynasties in medieval Lombardy were the Visconti and, after 1450, the Sforza. They produced a string of feared rulers in Italy – but also created around them the most glittering court in the peninsula, the rival of any in Europe. Artists, musicians and men of letters flocked here to participate in the unending spectacle of court life and compete for unparalleled opportunities to exercise their talents.

Milan was no Renaissance upstart: it had been capital of the western Roman Empire for over a century, in succession to Rome itself, and in the Early Middle Ages remained a major centre of commerce, manufacture and church administration. At first, power coalesced around the archbishop but subsequently shifted towards civic institutions, the merchants and manufacturers, only to be seized in 1277 by a scion of the dominant family, Ottone Visconti – who, as it happens, was the archbishop. 

Despite the vicissitudes of early modern history, when Lombardy was under occupation successively by France, Spain and Austria, Milan held its position as Italy’s most economically advanced city. And so it remains, a busy and prosperous capital, fashion and design to the fore, strewn with staggering architecture and world-class artworks.